


One Hundred One Thousands

by Spoon888



Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007), Transformers: Prime
Genre: Chapter Specific Warnings, Character Study, M/M, Multi, Multiple Pairings, One-Shot Collection, writing prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2020-07-25 12:17:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 22,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20025688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spoon888/pseuds/Spoon888
Summary: A collection of one hundred Transformers ficlets, all one thousand* words long, inspired by one word prompts.*give or take a hundred





	1. Thundercracker/Skywarp - Reservations

**Author's Note:**

> Rated G. No warnings for this chapter, save maybe Skywarp being Skywarp.

It was winter in New York City. Though Cybertronians like Thundercracker weren't as affected by the snow storms as most of the city's flesh and bone residents, when he had last fuelled himself he hadn't accounted for energy he'd require heating himself for the two hours he'd been left out on the street -or left _over_ the street, _straddling the street_\- waiting for Skywarp to sort this whole mess out.

"I thought you called ahead?" He exclaimed for the fifth time, frowning at Skywarp crouched at the entrance to the fancy five-star restaurant, head ducked under the entry way to talk to the surprised hostess.

"I _did_ call ahead!" Skywarp insisted, head poking out from beneath the entryway, nudging the hostess out with him -an adolescence female who was clutching a large black book to her waistcoat-clad chest, knuckles white. "Show him human!"

"Eh, it's Belle," her small voice corrected.

The young female, a 'teenager', which by Thundercracker's understanding meant she was only a few days old, opened the heavy book and lifted it over head, as high as stubby human arms could. Thundercracker awkwardly bent to see, minding a horn-blasting truck as it drove through his legs and came close to clipping his codpiece.

There, in writing so small Thundercracker had to magnify it by one hundred, was a scribbled line; '_Reservation. 8:30pm. Mr & Mrs Warp_'.

"What does '_Mrs_' mean?" Thundercracker asked, puzzled.

"Who cares," Skywarp crawled on hands and knees out from under the restaurant's entryway, backing his aft up into a yellow taxi. It beeped indignantly. Skywarp stuck his middle finger up and cursed. He'd only been on Earth a week, but he'd already learnt all the modern vulgarities. "The point is, I _did_ call ahead."

"Then what's the problem?" Thundercracker huffed, cold and achey from standing in the same position for so long, terrified a shift in his footing would squash a pedestrian or send a car flying. "_C'mon_ Warp, if a semi comes up this street I'm a goner-"

"They can't fit us in." Skywarp pointed at 'Belle', the minimum wage working teenager who seemed to have been abandoned to the twenty foot alien robots by all her superiors.

"But you booked a table?"

"No, I mean they _physically_ can't fit us." Skywarp let his arms flop to his sides sullenly. "They don't have a Cybertronian entrance, and I can't even fit my head through the door."

"We... We have an alley out back you can park in?" The little voice, Belle, called up tentatively.

"_Park?!_" Skywarp blanched, aghast.

But Thundercracker had bigger things to complain about."You didn't check it was inter-species compliant?"

Skywarp shrugged. "I thought they all were."

Thundercracker made a point of gesturing to where he was standing, straddling a street, cars and cyclists zooming between his legs, tourists taking pictures of his undercarriage to post on social media. "In case you haven't noticed, Skywarp, _nowhere_ in this city is Cybertronian compliant!"

Skywarp blew air through his mouth, stomping a pede and setting off all the car alarms in the entire city block. "I bet they don't even serve energon."

"We have pizza!" Belle called up, trying her best.

"No offence _human_." Skywarp began, speaking with as much offence as he could possibly muster, peering down his nose at her, "But you have been completely useless."

Belle didn't seem particularly troubled by the giant purple alien jet's feedback on her customer service skills.

"Maybe we should just go," Thundercracker was ready to admit defeat. "Get a can of oil somewhere and call it a cycle."

"But TC, it's _date night_!" Skywarp protested. He looked around in a panic, optics settling on the shivering human on the sidewalk below. "You, human-"

"_Belle_," Belle corrected grumpily, too annoyed to be scared now.

"Stupid designation," Skywarp muttered under his breath. "Take us to your alley and bring us two of your finest pissas!"

"Pizzas." She corrected again.

With the way Skywarp was looking at her for having had the nerve to make a fool of him made Thundercracker concerned that Belle herself was about to be flattened into a 'pizza'.

Belle managed to lead them to the alley intact, Thundercracker tugging Skywarp back by the wrist every time his trine-mate looked like he was gearing up to 'accidentally kick' her. It was far from the romantic, high-end experience Thundercracker had been expecting when Skywarp had mentioned New York. It was dark, dingy, slush covered, and smelt... _suspect_.

There were two snow covered dumpsters. Skywarp brushed one down and took a seat. There was a groan then snap as it's structural integrity was hampered by Skywarp's weight.

Skywarp leant to the side to check it was still intact, knees up to his chest in a position that hardly looked comfortable, or dignified. "Good enough." He decided, and brushed down the other dumpster for Thundercracker to join him.

Thundercracker did, wincing when his weight near crushed it.

It wasn't the sort of atmosphere Thundercracker would read about in his novels -strolls through Central Park, dancing on rooftop bars, kisses atop the Empire State, but at least Thundercracker could see the famous skyscraper from the alley, lights dim behind the flurry of snow.

"Sorry I screwed this up." Skywarp nudged him with his foot.

"It's nice." Thundercracker could find it in himself to throw Skywarp a few bolts. He _had_ tried. "Private at least."

It seemed to cheer Skywarp somewhat. He sighed, sat back, crushed the dumpster by a couple more inches, "So long as I get fuel, I'm good."

Thundercracker was almost starting to enjoy himself, until a few minutes later, when a coat, hat, gloves, a scarf encased Belle -at least Thundercracker _thought_ it was her under all that fabric- reappeared with their...pizza.

"What." Skywarp began, sneering with undisguised disgust at the round flat cheese and sauce covered bread she had brought out. "Is _that?!"_

"Pizza," Belle held them up, voice muffled by the scarf. "I even put a couple nuts and bolts on them for toppings, see?"

She had indeed thrown some rusty metal atop the pizza.

"That's it." Skywarp stood up, "We're going to JFK. I _know_ they have decent fuel there!"

He stormed out of the alley. Thundercracker cast a sympathetic look Belle's way before following, wishing he carried human currency so he could at least tip her for her trouble.

So much for date night.


	2. Megatron/Starscream -Autograph

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The obligatory MegaStar drabble coming in early because I can't stop myself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated T. Warnings for illegal gladiatorial combat, Starscream being Starscream, and fraud. 
> 
> Set IDW Pre-War Cybertron.

Clench was on the rampage.

"How many times do I have to tell you bolt-brains?! No autographs! No pictures-!"

"C'mon Clench," Uproar opened his arms. "If I pretty mecha wants my picture to hang over their recharge station on lonely nights, who am I to deny them?"

"You're not here to be celebrities, you're here to fight and win me shanix!" Clench flung an empty oil can at him. "Security bots are already swarming this district. I don't need you leading them right to our doorstep with a trail of your autographed mugshots!"

It was a matter of common sense in Megatron's opinion. Of course their anonymity was more important than indulging a few fans. It was a temptation, especially for the younger mechs easily won over by big mooning optics and unblemished paint jobs, but one he had so managed to avoid.

"Megs! Megatron!? Over here!"

Voices called to him from the mass of mecha wedged together in the stands over the tunnel after his match, rising in volume and eagerness as he passed. They hung over the edge of the railing, trying to reach him, waving datapads and foam replicas of gladiatorial weapons, vying for his attention. He offered them little more than an appreciative nod for their support, moving off towards the armoury, and then, hopefully, back to his quarters.

It wasn't to be.

He was almost home-free, about to pass through into the private living space where even the handful of 'backstage' fans were unable to stalk their obsessions -when he was interrupted by a streak of red, blue and white. He stopped short, blinking at the seeker in front of him. A datapad hugged to his chest.

"Hey?" Uproar came stomping over before either of them could say anything. "I thought you wanted-?"

"Yes, well I've only one datapad and I'd rather not waste it on your scribbles," the seeker told Uproar, waving him off with a dismissively limp wrist. "I'm trading up."

Uproar, who must have been responsible for bringing this seeker past the security barriers in the first place, grumbled something rather rude about the attention span of seekers and moved off, clearly recognising trouble when he saw it.

Megatron too, was rather good at recognising trouble. But this variety of trouble had a rather lovely smile...

"No autographs," he grunted, hand up, sidestepping to move past.

The seeker used his wingspan to his advantage and blocked him, smile somehow brighter, more dazzling. More dangerous. "I've been waiting for hours."

"It's against our security protocols."

"So is me being here, but no one has died yet, have they?" He seeker tilted his head, and blinked slowly, crimson optics as clever and sharp as the rest of his refined features.

Megatron looked left and right, over his shoulder, just to be sure they were alone. "_One_ autograph." He conceded, taking the datapad and light-pen the seeker had at the ready, scribbling it without looking. "And don't let this get around-"

"You can trust me." The seeker reassured him, tone... questionable.

Megatron was already regretting his decision, handing the datapad back. Warm fingers brushed his.

"What is your designation?"

"Why?" The seeker asked, turning the datapad around to check the signature. "You want my autograph too?"

"No, but I'd settle for a comm frequency."

The seeker looked away, smiling.

"...Starscream." He purred, reaching to take Megatron's wrist. Megatron let him, opening his exterior comm panel so Starscream could programme it with his frequency, claws tapping elegantly at the oversized buttons needed for Megatron's clumsy fingers.

Starscream shut the comm panel with a smirk, hand lingering on his wrist. "Call me." He said, twirling away, forbidden autograph tucked under his arm.

Megatron watched him go, hoping it wasn't something he'd regret.

* * *

He didn't regret it, obviously. Starscream was charming and clever and funny, and all for the price of one autograph, he had company to meet with for fuel after the fights, someone to confide in over late night comm-calls. A friend. Someone to trust. Perhaps even something more.

They were veering dangerously close to that 'something more' one night in Starscream's apartment, as he sat by the window and watched Starscream read his latest works, laid on his front across the berth, thrusters kicking in the air, wing flicking every time he swiped to change a page. He wondered how someone could look so effortlessly sublime-

The romantic sludge clogging up his processor cleared when his comm pinged with an incoming call.

Annoyed that someone would interrupt his precious time drooling over Starscream, he answered with a snarled, "What?!"

"_It's me_." Clench's voice snapped back with equal irritation. "_Wanna tell me why there are half a dozen bailiffs in my arena looking for you?!"_

"Bailiffs?" Megatron murmured. "For me?"

"_Been running up debts, huh_?" Clench continued, "_Well you got one more thing to worry about if you don't get your aft back here this second and pay these guys! They're threatening to call Autobot security!"_

"I don't owe anyone anything!" Megatron snarled.

On the berth, Starscream's feet had stopped swinging back and forth, his wings falling flat.

"_Your signature is all over these things_-!"

"It can't be my-" Megatron paused, staring past his commlink and drowning out Clench's furious voice to focus on the very, _very_ still seeker on the berth, face hidden in the datapad.

"I'll call you back."

"_No you'll get back here righ_-!"

Megatron hung up on Clench and began to approach the berth. Starscream's wings drooped lower.

"Starscream," he began, voice as even and casual as he could make it. "You don't happen to still have that autograph I signed for you, do you?"

"Eh... I must have lost it?" Starscream squeaked unconvincingly from behind the datapad.

Megatron plunged a hand down to take it back, but Starscream held firm, wrestling with him over it. It snapped, leaving them each with one jagged half. Starscream was still trying to hide behind it, bright optics peering over the broken edge.

"You _used_ my signature to take out _loans in my name?!"_ Megatron roared.

Starscream held his hands up, unashamed. "Well _next time_ you might pay a little more attention to what you're _signing_ instead of drooling over your fan's wings!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Megatron HAD the overthrow the government and start the civil war because it was the only way to stop the army of debt collectors from repossessing his fusion cannon.


	3. Optimus Prime/Starscream - Blindsided

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated T. Warnings for canon typical violence and general assholery a la Starscream. Set G1, Earth.

For such a young species Optimus found humans a remarkable species; curious, progressive, and eager to learn, building their civilisation up from near-nothing in just a few short millennia, with such short lifespans.

What he was less appreciative of were their design skills.

Because he was finding the vehicle he had scanned, the 'Peterbilt' truck, somewhat... flawed when held up to the standard of forms he had taken on before.

Asides from being large, cumbersome, and un-aerodynamic, he was visually compromised, hindered by the inability to see behind his own bulk. And as large as he was, it was a hazard. He feared for the day he inevitably reversed into an unsuspecting human, a day that would likely arrive soon with how frequently the tiny organics sprinted across the roads and ignored traffic signals.

But it was after a mission down in Florida, when the inconvenience of it become no longer ignorable.

Parking was limited in the coastal city of Miami, but his taxed systems needed a few hours recharge before making the gruelling drive back to base. He cruised the streets for some time before a sizeable enough roadside gap became available, and with skills that made some of the beach-going humans pause in admiration, squeezed himself into the space.

He dozed under the midday sun, drowning out the buzz of the city continuing on around him; the car horns and revving engines, the squawk of gulls overhead, the thunk of something heavy hitting the ground and the frightened shrieks of the humans as they ran for cover-

Optimus jolted forwards on his axel as he was shocked into awareness, humans darting out of their cars and off the sidewalks into the nearest buildings. He had seen this reaction before to incoming rain, but his windshield was free of moisture. Odd.

He looked left, right, up into the cloud dusted sky, and checked his rearview mirrors, but could neither see, nor hear any reason for the disturbance.

He switched on his indicator and carefully pulled out of the space, making a U turn in the deserted road to see more clearly up the other end of the street. There was a pothole the size of a canyon in the middle of the road, tarmac kicked up like a meteor had fallen from the sky.

As valid a reason as any for what might have spooked the humans, but where was that meteor now?

His question was answered when something that was most certainly _not_ a meteor leapt out of it's hiding place in his blind-spot and kicked him in the rear axel. His horn blared, the force of the kick lifting him off his rear wheels. He was transforming before they hit the tarmac again, twisting and sweeping out a leg to catch his assailant in the ankles and send them crashing to the ground.

A scratchy voice cackled a gleeful laugh and Optimus' leg swept through nothing but air as _Starscream_ made a timely jump, leapt over a nearby parked car, and blasted into the air, barrel rolling until he disappeared into the clouds.

Optimus disabled his battle protocols and rubbed his abused back as he straightened up, frowning at the Starscream-shaped hole in the cloud.

Of all the _immature_...

Of course, what else could he expect from a mech like Starscream but a hit-and-run.

* * *

"A camera?" He murmured when Wheeljack presented him with the minuscule device. "You built this?"

"Spike picked it up from 'RadioShack'." Wheeljack shrugged. "I just tinkered with it."

"So I wear this on my-"

"Aft, yes." Wheeljack winked. "You'll get the footage feed directly to your optics and be able to see any pesky seekers as good as if they were standing in front of you."

Optimus was keen to test that theory.

He drove not far from the base, to an open parking-lot near to where he knew Megatron had set up frequent air patrols to monitor Autobot activity. All he needed to do was wait. He didn't have to for long.

It was a testament to Starscream's stealth that Optimus heard nothing. Less than nothing even. The birds in the nearby trees stopped singing, even the wind stopped blowing. Optimus checked his mirrors, saw nothing, and then consulted his rearview camera.

And found a mischievous Starscream positioned expertly in his blind-spot, crouched but ready to leap up and blindside him with another attack as soon as he was close enough. Optimus felt a curl of amusement watching him, pedes tiptoeing, sneaking closer, devilish smirk on his face.

Optimus waited until the last second, just as Starscream looked like he was getting ready to kick him in the tail pipe, and transformed.

Starscream's shriek was lost to the transformation whir. He jumped back, forgetting to ignite his thrusters in his panic and flung his wings back in surprise, almost overbalancing himself. Optimus caught his flailing wrist and yanked him upright, shoving his armed weapon under Starscream's chin.

Starscream blinked, nose inches from Optimus's mask.

"...How did you _see me_?!" He exclaimed, flabbergasted.

"I'm not about to give away all my secrets, Starscream." Optimus rumbled, nudging him again with the gun when a smirk began to pull at Starscream's mouth. "What do you want?"

Starscream shrugged in his grip, leaning closer than Optimus was comfortable with. His sharp nose brushed Optimus's battle mask.

"Just a little fun." He whispered sultrily, engines purring as he nuzzled closer, cockpit clinking against Optimus's windshield.

Optimus's grip loosened, head snapping away to avoid the pair of full, parted lips coming in. "You-!"

Starscream grinned and yanked himself free, darting away before Optimus could recover and leaping into the air.

"Another time, Prime!" He laughed, flipping into jet-mode midair, performing a spinning loop to show off his agility before shooting off into the sun.

Optimus swallowed thickly and powered down his weapon, staring at the contrail the seeker had left behind.


	4. Knock Out/Breakdown - Ghost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated T for mentions of medical procedures and recreational drug use. Set Transformers Prime.

The last Vehicon caught watching the organic televisual feeds had been thrown from the ship by Megatron _personally_, fifty miles out to sea. No one had seen them since. Granted, Megatron had been tripping on dark energon at the time, but it wasn't something anyone wanted seeing a repeat of.

It was a 'processor numbing, frivolous waste of time', purple-tinged, cross-eyed Megatron had bellowed, and then punched his massive fist through the screen just to be sure no one could disobey his 'no watching human TV' rule _ever_ again.

It wasn't that Breakdown didn't respect Megatron, nor would disobey him without just cause, but he was wrong about TV, and Breakdown couldn't exactly avoid it. Not when Knock Out was addicted to the documentary-style medical programmes they broadcasted.

"Woah," Knock Out veered away from the screen when the camera focused on a meat-bag mid operation, ribs cracked open and dark blood obscuring pink organs. "That's a mess."

Breakdown was dozing, chin propped against his fist and arm slung over Knock Out's glossy shoulders as they snuggled down in front of the tiny stolen screen. "Hmm. Gross."

"Disgusting." Knock Out continued sardonically, letting his head drop to Breakdown's shoulder, optics shuttered as they watched. On screen the surgeon was inserting a 'pacemaker' into the human. "Combining technology with organics. It's an abomination."

Breakdown grunted.

It had been a long day for him, playing keep away with the Autobots and racing through the streets with energon cubes strapped to him, Knock Out out pacing him by miles but always circling back. He was run ragged, and the fleshling programme was not to his taste. He was snoring before long.

He woke with a jolt to crescendoing string music, realising it was some hours later. Knock Out was wide awake next to him, leaning forward out of his seat to stare at the screen with dinner plate sized optics.

Breakdown rubbed his face, "Hey-"

"Shh," Knock Out waved a servo at him, focused on the screen and the fleshling actor moving through the dark set with a frightened expression. Breakdown obediently shut his mouth, unsure what was so interesting about this new programme.

The music rose and fell as the human moved about the house in the dark, peering between shadows. Breakdown didn't have a clue what was happening, or what the meat-bag was looking for. Something moved in the background and the music blared. Knock Out jumped, hand flying back to take Breakdown's forearm, fingers tight and shaking.

Breakdown reached around Knock Out's shoulders and pulled him back, looking between the screen and his conjunx as Knock Out squeezed himself closer, slowly sinking behind Breakdown's thick arm so he couldn't even see the screen.

The organic managed to get a flashlight working on the screen, and they shined it on a mannequin. Knock Out made an aborted noise of fright at the suddenness of it's appearance, but quickly relaxed.

So did the human on screen.

Until they turned and came face-to-face with a grey _undead_ fleshling.

The human screamed. Knock Out screamed. Breakdown's battle protocols came online and he was blasting a hole through the TV before he knew it.

They stared at the smoking remains, panting.

"...Humans." Breakdown grunted, transforming his weapons away. "_That's_ how they entertain themselves?"

Knock Out was uncommonly quiet. He cleared his vocaliser. "Yes... Barbaric."

"Let's catch some recharge." Breakdown nudged him, mouth opening wide with a long, loud yawn, deciding to leave the smouldering remains of the screen till morning.

He slept like an iron beam, always did, Knock Out's restless tossing and turning nothing capable of disturbing him in the night. His face was wedged in the pillow, muffling chainsaw-like snores that Knock Out, despite claiming to be a light sleeper, never seemed disturbed by -when a hand clutched his shoulder and started shaking him.

"Mmphh?" He rolled his face out of the pillow.

"I heard something." Knock Out's smooth sultry voice had taken on a Starscream-like cadence.

Breakdown forced himself awake, sitting up and looking around their dark quarters. It was silent save for the drone of the _Nemesis's_ engines and Knock Out's short shallow breaths. Breakdown still waited, straining his audials.

"I can't hear anything." He breathed after he'd given the mystery noise a sufficient amount of time to make itself known, shuttering his optics again.

"It sounded like the door." Knock Out's optics were blown wide in the darkness, staring at their sealed door panel.

"Fine, I'll answer it." Breakdown began to rise, grunting and groaning as he pushed away the warm insulation cover.

"No." Knock Out grabbed his shoulders and hauled him back. He fell over the berth sideways. "What if it's- it's a-"

Breakdown frowned at him upside-down. "A what? A ghost?"

"Shh! It might hear us!"

"For the love of-" Breakdown rose, ignoring Knock Out's hands scrambling for purchase on his shoulders.

"Breakdown!"

"There's no such thing as ghosts." Breakdown told him from the door, reaching for the access panel. Knock Out lifted the covers up to his nose, optics impossibly wider. Breakdown unlocked the door and pressed 'open'. "And there's nothing out here to-"  
  
The door swept open and there was _indeed_ a grey a spectator of death at their door.

Breakdown lurched back in horror when a furious Starscream held up the smouldering remains of their blasted TV. "Is this _yours?!"_

Unwilling to be thrown from the ship at Megatron's command, Breakdown laughed a hysterical unconvincing laugh and blurted "No!" before shutting the door in Starscream's face.

He breathed a sigh of relief, spark still drumming in it's chamber, and saw Knock Out half hidden under the covers, shaking with laughter.

"Well it wasn't a ghost!" He defended.

"But not far from it." Knock Out peaked out to wink back.


	5. Grimlock - Destruction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated G. Minor warnings for accidental sandcastle demolition.

A Dinosaur prowling along a Californian beach was a sight most humans weren't used to, but Grimlock waded through the gasping, fawning crowd easily. They parted from him with stumbling steps, upturned faces pale with fear, or flushed with wonder. It was good that they moved, Grimlock thought, tail swishing behind as he walked, meat-bags weren't so much fun to swing his energon sword at. They fell too easily.

He had stepped in something wet and foul smelling, and Prowl had forbidden him from scrapping it off his pede with Sideswipe's spoiler, so here he was, trudging down to the shifting ocean to rinse it off. His heavy pedes sunk into the damp sand and the waves rolled forwards to lap at his pedes. He growled and kicked at it, sending a salt spray into the air. He could taste the brine with his olfactory.

It was cool and frothy. He liked it.

He waded in up to his knee joints, enjoying himself more than he would have expected. Humans were kicking and splashing through the water to get themselves clear of him, but he paid them no mind, enjoying the feel of wet sand between his toe-pedes.

Until a piece of seaweed became stuck in his knee joint.

"Me Grimlock _hate_ slimy plant!" He bellowed, but could not reach it with his short tyrannosaurus arms. He roared at the sky for cursing him so, and threw himself into a transformation sequence, salt water rushing between his seams and leaving him dripping and uncomfortable in bipedal mode. He tore the seaweed out of his knee joint and flung it. It sailed through the air and slapped some unfortunate surfer in the face, knocking her off her board and into the waves.

"Me Grimlock prefer dry land." He muttered to himself, the novelty of Earth's ocean quickly evaporating.

He began striding out of the ocean, lumbering straight through groups of sunbathing meat-bags who barely had the time to pick up their towels and flee. Fleshlings always moved for him, so he kept a straight path.

"No!" A little voice squealed.

Grimlock looked down, and then down a little more, until he found a miniature fleshling between his pedes. It was very small, and therefore weak and beneath his notice, her only weapon a plastic pink bucket and spade. Her dark hair had been tied into pigtails, and Grimlock wondered of they were to give the fleshling the illusion of horns to scare off predators.

"You're gonna squish it!" The sand-dusted spade waved in the air.

"Me Grimlock squish _you_ if you no move!" He threatened.

But the small fleshling stood tall, chest out, chin up. She was protecting something, Grimlock realised, peering behind her tiny soft body. A damp, squared mound of sand, shaped with ridges to look like a castle.

"It's my best one," she pointed with the spade, and Grimlock did indeed see that she had been at it for some time. The beach all around her was littered with collapsed sand mounds. Grimlock might have wondered why, if he cared about the behavioural patterns of the planet's native inhabitants. Perhaps she was marking her territory.

"Me Grimlock go around." He conceded, only because he didn't want to have to step on her and dirty his pedes again.

He took one heavy step to the side, and as simply as that, the fleshling's coveted sand mound collapsed. Grimlock paused. The human stared at it for a moment, before bucket and spade fell from her hands and she dropped to the sand with a pathetic whining cry.

Grimlock wrung his hands together, looking down at the heavy clumsy pede that had destroyed her hard work.

"Me Grimlock fix it." He said confidently, bending at the waist and pushing the sand mound together again with his huge hands. But it only seemed to made it worse. The sand was drying and slipping through his digits, and what remained was little more than a misshapen hill.

Frustrated, he sat down much like the fleshling had, taking more care, using just his index fingers.

"Why sand no stick?!" He bellowed as his materials began to blow away in the wind.

There was a crinkle of cheap plastic, and the distressed fleshling was next to him, wiping her damp face with the back of her arm as she extended the bucket to him. "You need this."

Grimlock took the flimsy bucket by the handle between his thumb and forefinger, and the human used her spade to dig into the sand. It was damper below the surface, and Grimlock soon realised what she was doing. He dug with his fingers, three times as deep and twice the speed as her tiny spade.

"This is good," she said, tongue sticking out from between her lips as she shoved her spade into the hole he'd made and clumsily tipped the dark, dampened sand into the bucket he held. Once it was full she smacked the sand down with the spade until it was flat.

"Now you find a good spot." She explained and wandered away, assessing the sand, hands on her hips and brow creased with concentration. She pointed. "Here."

Grimlock obediently tipped the bucket over. Some of the sand escaped between the edges but the fleshling didn't seem perturbed. She told him not to lift the bucket away until she'd smacked it from all sides. The most important part, she'd explained. 

"Okay." She ordered.

Grimlock lifted the bucket away, and there was a new smooth block of sand. It was missing a few chunks, but it was a castle. And the human seemed happy.

"Let's do another!" She said excitedly, spade already plunged into the sand for frantic digging. "We'll make a billion and then we can knock them all down like Godzilla!"

Godzilla? Now Grimlock liked the sound of _that_.


	6. Soundwave/Shockwave - Engagement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated T for mentions of injury and the emotional constipation of the named couple. A dash of Mega/Star added for flavour. Set G1.

Shockwave stared up at his lab's huge communication screen and the blinking line of text in the bottom left corner.

_Engaged_.

Odd. To Shockwave's knowledge, the Decepticon Earth base wasn't in regular contact with any other parties, and _he_ was the guardian of Cybertron. Who else would Megatron be talking with, if not himself?

He elected to try again later. Soundwave would simply have to wait for a response to his query on Ravage's missing tail components. The cassette was not in a life-threatening state, and the only harm done would be to Ravage's dignity, and perhaps his balance. He had a highly resilient frame type at any rate, and no feline had ever suffered much for a stumpy tail.

He attempted to reach the base again that evening, late into Earth's solar cycle when most Decepticons chose to take their recharge and Soundwave was more likely to be free and unharassed by his group of spies.

But again, he sat before the screen, and the signal failed to connect.

_Engaged_.

This was troubling. Perhaps the long range communication console had been damaged. A common occurrence and very real possibility when the underwater base was constantly at risk of flooding and filled with Decepticons with little to no respect for their surroundings. Shockwave immediately thought of Starscream and how typical it would be for the 'Second In Command' to have destroyed the console out of spite, preventing Shockwave from contacting both Megatron _and_ Soundwave.

He decided that was an emotional line of thinking, and that even Starscream, as unhinged as he was, would not do such a thing when contact between Earth and Cybertron was so vital for their continued survival.

He decided to leave it for now, and try again in the morning.

And found it was still '_engaged_'.

Somewhat worn from a sleepless night of overthinking, Shockwave snatched up the files on tail schematics and the spare components he had intended to send over to Earth anyway, and stepped into the space bridge _himself_, determined to get to the bottom of this, and more importantly, reassure Soundwave that he had _not_ been ignoring his comrade's request for assistance when it came to Ravage's unique ailment.

The space bridge activated, the artificial gravitational pull tugging at his plating at he moved through and stepped out on the other side, directly into the Earth base's communications centre, parts and files tucked under one arm.

The room was empty and the monitors unmanned, but he heard a cackle of laughter behind him, and turned to find _Starscream_ sat in front of the long range communications console that had been '_busy_' for the last day.

It was certainly _working_, because Megatron was on it, stationed off base on some distant part of the planet, characteristic frown softened into an unbefitting smile as he gazed down at his second.

Shockwave's optic brightened when their conversation -if it could be called such a thing- reached his audials.

"-don't know what you've going to do without me for another week, Megatron," Starscream was cooing, his wings up and chin propped in his fist, doing his best impression of the coy little seeker everyone but Megatron knew he wasn't.

"Well I-" Megatron began, before looking up and spotting Shockwave over the seeker's wing. His expression snapped back into a furious frown. "-Shockwave?!"

Starscream whipped around, wings shooting down, "_Shockwave_?!" He howled.

"The communication frequency was blocked." Shockwave explained, now realising _why_, though not quite understanding _how_ the pair of them had managed to find things to talk about for a near constant twenty hours.

Both leader and second in command looked decidedly awkward. "We had important matters to discuss!" Starscream protested, though Shockwave was sure they'd not spoken a word of business between the two of them, mostly because they never did in person either.

"Soundwave." He ordered, reluctant to linger in the middle of _this_ any longer.

"He's in the medbay." Starscream scoffed, shooing him. "Now do you _mind_? This is classified!"

Yes, Shockwave was sure making optics at one another and _pining_ was a classified activity to most other Decepticons. He gave a respectful nod to Megatron on screen, and a long disapproving stare at Starscream whose fault he was sure all this was -always leading _someone_ astray that seeker- and moved of in search of Soundwave, hoping his delay hadn't caused too great a distress.

Soundwave was indeed in the medbay with Ravage. The remains of the cassette's tail lay on a bench nearby, crushed to scrap by the wood chipper the cassette had been thrown into during battle. If he had failed to disengaged his tail, Ravage's _entire_ frame might have been laid out on the bench, and Shockwave would be making a very different sort of visit indeed.

Soundwave appeared surprised when he walked in, his visor brightening by at least twenty percent. Shockwave extended the spare parts first, then passed over the schematics. "A simple procedure."

"Acknowledged." Soundwave took them, but kept his visor focused on Shockwave. "I appreciate you coming in person."

Shockwave had only come in person due to the confusion with the communication consoles, and logically, he should have explained that to Soundwave to avoid a misunderstanding.

"I considered the situation of high priority." He said instead, taking up a position next to Soundwave to assist with the work. "Ravage is a valuable asset."

Soundwave appreciated it when a cassette of his was praised, and he relaxed somewhat, but was clearly still tense with the situation and his favourite spy's condition. They reached for the same tool at the same time, and their hands touched. Neither one of them commented on their likemindedness, but Shockwave sidestepped closer, and their shoulders brushed.

"Suggestion." Soundwave began, visor focused on the tools. "Refuel here before returning to Cybertron."

"Yes." Shockwave nodded, spark warm and full though he couldn't tell why. "That would be... most logical."


	7. Starscream/Soundwave/Megatron -Bodyguard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated T. Set IDW Pre-War, and an AU, kinda. Warnings for nondescript murder.

The very suggestion of Kaon's top gladiators requiring a bodyguard was insulting. Megatron and Soundwave been rendering mecha to little more than scrap in the ring for over a century with little but their own bare hands as weapons. So that Shockwave seemed to think they would require protection simply walking down a civilian street could only be a joke.

"Your bodyguard is here!" Rumble called, poking his head around the doorway, grin too wide for it to be anything less than as bad as Soundwave imagined it. Megatron's own expression reflected how he felt, face souring as he threw down the energy blade he'd been using to clean out the muck from his pedes and scooped up a broadsword instead, sliding it into the sheath on his back.

There was absolutely no reason for them to be armed in meeting their new bodyguard -a mecha vetted extensively by Shockwave, a highly skilled fighter and far too expensive to be anything but the real deal- but Soundwave followed Megatron's lead, setting his visor to dim for maximum intimidation effect. With any luck their _protection_ would take one look at their fearsome demeanours and realise Shockwave had been wasting his time, and Soundwave and Megatron would be able to go about their business without the humiliating presence of a security detail.

He followed Megatron into the corridor, strides long and purposeful. And walked straight into the taller mech's tense back.

Soundwave peered around Megatron's shoulder, wondering at the delay - until he saw the mech stood in front of them.

"Rumble!" Megatron barked at the tiny frame next to his leg, intolerant of the cassette's immature pranks even on the best of days. "Is this some sort of joke?"

But Rumble's grin was blinding and unrepentant. With a sinking feeling, Soundwave realised he had nothing to do with this.

"_Excuse_ me?" The mech, the 'supposed bodyguard', hissed.

But Soundwave had to agree with Megatron's incredulity. Shockwave had assigned them a seeker. A _short_ seeker. A high-caste, premium finished, not-a-scratch-on-him seeker, who was gleaming and bright with manicured hands and had probably never even held a weapon, let alone taken a hit.

"Your services are no longer required." Soundwave said diplomatically, before Megatron could explode and say something far less politically correct.

The seeker didn't budge. "Tragic, because I've already been paid."

"Keep the credits." Megatron sneered. "We don't have any use for the likes of you."

"Then it's just too bad _you_ aren't the mecha who hired me, huh?" The seeker rolled his optics, not in the least intimated. "Now where are we recharging? I've been contracted to keep an optic on you around the clock."

Megatron snapped his panicked gaze to Soundwave, who didn't know how to reassure him. Had Shockwave sent them a bodyguard or a babysitter? Someone to protect them or to keep them out of trouble? This seeker was sending more disapproving nanny vibes than loyal protector ones.

Whatever he'd been sent here for, it was obvious he wasn't about to let them send him away.

The seeker's designation -they learned through Frenzy- was Starscream, but attempts at running backgrounds checks to see who he was and what he did were futile. His records had been wiped clean. Far too clean for Soundwave's peace of mind.

They'd tried to turf him off one of the other gladiators. There was no shortage of mecha happy to open their doors to an attractive roommate, but Starscream was adamant that he was rooming with _them_, regardless of the cramped room they shared, regardless of the two single berths the room held, somehow bullying the two of them (plus Rumble and Frenzy) into the one bed whilst he took the other.

Soundwave cast a visored glare in the seeker's direction, wincing under the weight of Megatron laid sideways across him.

"How long." Megatron muttered the next cycle, glaring at Starscream across the table as they fuelled. "How long do we have to put up with you."

"Forever?" Starscream shrugged. "Till one of us dies?"

Soundwave shared a glance with Megatron, _we can take him_.

And Soundwave believed that. One high-caste seeker that had no right to be in Kaon let alone acting as a 'bodyguard', stood no chance against a gladiator, let alone two of the finest.

He believed that, right up until the moment he was proven so staggeringly wrong.

Megatron was a creature of habit, and every midweek cycle he frequented his favourite bar, a dingy hole called Old Plug. He resented Starscream's presence, and Soundwave agreed. A flashy seeker attracted a lot of attention, and Starscream would be more trouble than he was worth.

How he was supposed to 'protect' him and Megatron when he spent the entire evening surrounded by gaggles of native kaonites trying to wheedle a comm frequency out of him was beyond Soundwave.

He and Megatron sat at their usual table, alone, the rest of the bars's occupants fawning over their 'bodyguard'.

"I suppose he could always _seduce_ the trouble away." Megatron grunted.

Soundwave rubbed his temples, agreeing with the sentiment, if not the wording.

The only other mech present that didn't seem won over by Starscream's vosian charms was a large beige labourer, hunched over at the bar. Soundwave studied him, noting the tense line of his shoulders, the distracted twitch of his hands. He seemed distracted, nervous, but Soundwave could easily put it down to Starscream's gleaming presence.

The mech noticed his attention though, and climbed down from the bar stool. Megatron was too busy muttering under his breath about how much he hated Starscream to notice they had company until the mech was right up beside their table.

Soundwave felt that something wasn't right. He began to straighten.

"Megatron?" The mech began.

Megatron tore his optics away from Starscream to grunt, "Yeah, wha-"

The dagger came out of nowhere. Megatron optic's brightening in the split second before the blade caught the light and jabbed forward.

It never impacted, and Megatron never needed to defend. The mech struck out at air, missing Megatron by a full meter, something throwing off his aim. He fell against the table, face down. Unmoving.

Megatron stared, optics still round and bright, looking over the top of the body at Soundwave. Neither of them could speak.

Starscream pulled his own dagger out of the back of their assailant's neck, tutting. "Don't need protection, my aft."

He strutted off, cleaning the energon smeared along the blade off on some staring mech's arm before slipping it back into his subspace and retaking his seat.

Soundwave reached across their table to shut Megatron's jaw for him.


	8. Coneheads - Jaded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated T. Warnings for implied depression and social anxiety. Set G1 cartoon.

"Cheer up," Mecha would quip, chucking Dirge under the chin like their cheery disposition and bright ideas were enough to 'turn his frown upside down'. Like he wouldn't follow that advice if he could. No one ever told _Megatron_ to 'cheer up' after a failed raid, or when he was sat on the floor outside the medbay cradling his own dismembered arm. They steered well clear of him.

So why was was it okay to treat Dirge's misery as an inconvenience? A problem to be solved?

Why wasn't he allowed just feel sad and mind his own business?

"It's cuz you're _always_ sad." Skywarp chuckled, because it was a running joke, apparently. "Maybe go outside for once? It's a proven study, ya know, that flying improves your mood? Screamer used it to bag us more free-flight time. You should clock more hours."

Dirge knew he probably would feel better. "I'm tired."

"Take a nap." Skywarp clapped him on the back and moved off, searching for better company.

"It's not that sort of tired." Dirge murmured to no one, dragging his digit through a drop of energon spilt on the table and embracing the emptiness of his own thoughts.

He liked being alone. Honestly. He didn't have to worry about ruining The Mood, or being a burden. It was in a seeker's nature to be high energy and enthusiastic. One of the most popular stereotypes was that they were always up for a good time, always the life of the party - a full trine of seekers was considered the epitome of fun.

He must have missed out on that Fun-programming, or lost it sometime around being handed the designation 'Dirge' and all the projecting that had come with it.

He took to his berth when he wasn't required elsewhere, hid under the covers with a stolen TV, watching hours upon hours of infantile 'cartoons'- the humans' take on animation, hand drawn, colourful characters with big eyes and funny voices. They went on adventures and fought bad guys and saved the day, and there was always a character that vaguely reminded him of Optimus Prime -not in appearance, but definitely in that weirdly benevolently loving, authoritative way.

Sometimes there was a character who reminded him of Megatron too. They seemed to spend most of their time laughing maniacally or getting beaten up in increasingly embarrassing and creative ways. Which said a lot really.

"Dirge?" Thrust's voice was calling him, somewhere above the covers. "You under there?"

Dirge didn't answer. He was comfortable and reluctant to move.

The sheets lifted anyway, and Dirge squirmed when his optics were assaulted by a flood of light that wasn't from his static filled tv screen.

"It's raining up there." Thrust gestured with his head towards the ceiling, but was referring to the surface above the ocean. "Me n' Ramjet were thinking of dive bombing fishing boats." His face spilt into a grin. "You wanna come? Last to sink five buys the others a high-grade off Swindle."

Dirge didn't take his optics off his cartoon characters. They were embracing one another after a successful day of thwarting evil. Dirge wished he had friends to hug him like that. He wished he had friends full stop.

"That a no?"

Dirge tore his gaze away from the screen, annoyed that Thrust was still there. "I'm trying to watch something."

Thrust's mouth pulled into an annoyed frowned. Dirge wouldn't be surprised if he called him a jerk and never bothered to invite him anywhere ever again. He didn't know why Thrust still _did_ as it was. He never went anyway, and it was annoying having to find excuses not to go that didn't amount to 'I just don't feel like it'.

Because it tended to make everyone try and 'cheer him up' again.

"How long you been watching this?"

"Thrust," Dirge's apathy was only a cover for ever lingering irritation at the world around him. "You're interrupting."

"Can I watch?"

Dirge hugged the screen closer to his chest, hiding the colourful images. "What?"

"Gotta be better than harassing fishermen, right?" Thrust began to climb into his berth with him, inviting himself between the sheets and climbing over him to take a position up against the wall. Dirge moved up to the opposite edge, awkward at having to share his space.

"Losers can't even shoot back." He continued when he was settled.

"Then why do it?"

"Bored." Thrust shrugged. "And it makes us look busy. When Screamer catches anyone loitering around he likes to send them on errands."

Dirge knew what sort of 'errands' Starscream sent mechs on. They only came in two forms; life-threatening or treacherous, and it said a lot that the former was preferable.

"It's stupid." He muttered.

"Huh?"

"This." Dirge reached to change the channel, embarrassed by the goofy antics of the cartoon now.

Thrust slapped his hand away. "Hey, I'm tryna watch!"

Dirge dropped his hand away, wincing as he watched Thrust immerse himself in his silly cartoon, waiting for the ridicule and the jokes that a seeker would rather lay in a berth all off-shift and watch infantile kiddie shows than go out and have fun.

But the jokes never came. Thrust dropped his conned head to Dirge's shoulder and said nothing. And it was... it was nice to have company. Even if they weren't really talking to one another. It was nice.

"This where you losers are hiding?" Ramjet stepped through the door not long into their viewing, wondering where his dive-bombing partner had disappeared off to.

"'Jet you gotta watch this!" Thrust called from Dirge's berth. "It's a cartoon-!"

"I don't watch cartoons." Ramjet announced snidely, but came to check it out anyway, leaning over Dirge's other shoulder.

Dirge went stiff, hyperaware of his trine-leader's presence overhead, doubly so when Ramjet quickly became taken enough with the show that he lifted a knee onto the berth.

"Move up, moron!"

Dirge shuffled into the middle of the berth and was soon wedged between both trinemate's. Thrust was cramped against the bulkhead and Ramjet was lying half on top of him, but he didn't complain, glancing between them as their bright optics became fixed on the flickering images.

"You find the best shows." Thrust murmured halfway through the episode. Ramjet made some vague noise of agreement.

Dirge watched a character blast a ray of pink light at an enemy, and didn't feel quite so tired anymore. 


	9. Megatron/Optimus Prime - Quiet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated T. Set in some cherry picked disaster combination of a continuity.

A hush fell across the audience as the lights dimmed. The spotlights swung towards the three hundred and sixty degree stage at the centre of the Operatic Oval Theatre. Next to Megatron, Optimus shifted in his seat with a loud creak.

In the deep silence, it was wincingly loud. Megatron cast a disapproving look Optimus's way, and received a confused frown back.

"_Quiet_." Megatron mouthed at him incredulously.

Prime looked rather lost, stiffening awkwardly in his seat to prevent further movement, and further creaks. Should someone so much as dare to clear their vocaliser in the theatre every optic would turn towards him, and Prime didn't appear to realise that although they were in the box, metres above the rest of the audience, they would still be heard. And all the entire theatre would need to do was glance upwards and see renowned political enemies, the Prime and Lord High Protector, canoodling over a romantic performance.

"I've never been to the opera before." Optimus had told him fretfully when they'd snuck through the backdoor hand in hand, glancing left and right, on the lookout for nosy colleagues and meddlesome press. "I'm not sure of the etiquette."

Optimus Prime, Autobot figurehead, should have been a frequent opera goer. But Orion Pax, lowly data clerk, would never have been permitted the luxury. Of course this was unfamiliar territory for him. Megatron cursed himself for being so thoughtless.

"It's a show." Megatron had rolled his optics. "There is no etiquette. You shut up and watch."

'Shut up and watch' as the only instructions he had given Optimus, were not hard to follow. Megatron had no idea why he was having so much trouble with them.

In the centre of the theatre the heavy plum curtains began to lift away, rolling upwards towards the rafters to reveal a heavily adorned, painted mecha at it's centre, wings' dripping golds and silvers and silks. They took a deep invent, ready for the first note.

"Why is he dressed like that?" Optimus whispered.

But with a vocaliser like _that_, it travelled. Far.

The shuffle of armour and creaking off chairs alerted Megatron to the movement of hundreds below, turning to frown at the source of the noise. He glanced down and saw a sea of blue, red, and yellow optics glaring up at his box. There was a pause, before those hundreds of optics began to widen and the hiss of whispering started, fingers pointing.

The poor performer's voice cracked on the first note with the distraction, but no one seemed to notice, fingers pointing in the opposite direction, towards the royal box.

"Oops," Optimus's deep timbre murmured, a palm raised in an awkward wave.

Megatron had no choice but to sink in his seat until he was no longer visible to the audience below. He gestured for Optimus to duck down too. With any luck they'd be able to escape and flee through the backdoor before anyone came running around to get a close enough look to make an unmistakable ID on just _who_ was accompanying the Prime on his late night date.

For all the opera goers knew, in this dim lighting, they could be two lookalikes.

"Megatron?!" Optimus cried loudly when Megatron tugged on his pede, removing all doubt from the minds of _everyone_ within audial range. In other words, the entire theatre. "What are you-?"

"Get down," Megatron hissed, and tugged him again. This time the force he used was enough to tip the seat over and knock Optimus to the floor with the loudest, echoing slam.

There was a gasp from the audience below, but Optimus was fine -fine enough to get into a stupid slap fight with Megatron when the Lord High Protector tried to cover his mouth to stop him from blurting any more condemning information out.

"Megatron stop-!"

"Stop shouting my designation!"

They rolled and knocked the other chair over, and the banging and smashing from their box wasn't only alarming the shocked audience below, but the ushers outside their box as well.

The privacy curtains to their box flew back with the rush of rings on curtain poles, and the mech they'd paid off to keep their appearance here on the quiet appeared standing in the threshold looking shocked.

It was obvious why, when Megatron looked down at how he was pinning the Prime's wrists to the plush carpet in one hand and had his other wrapped around his neck.

Megatron yanked his hands away and sat up, holding them aloft. But by then the usher was being joined by three other large mecha from security, all of them peering past the curtains and stopping short at the sight of the Lord High Protector sat on their Prime.

"We don't allow that sort of thing in here, my lord." One of the security mecha, the bravest, stepped forward diplomatically. "Though I can recommend a... _discreet_ motel not two blocks from here."

Optimus's laugh barked out of him, and the acoustics carried it all around the oval theatre, louder even that the buzz of excited conversation from the distracted audience below.

It was made all the worse when Optimus decided he might all well toss aside whatever remaining dignity either of them had by replying with. "Oh we know. We just came from there, actually!"

Megatron lifted a hand to his forehead and sighed.

So much for a quiet evening at the opera.


	10. Megatron/Starscream - Massage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated T for Starscream's homicidal day dreams. Set pre-canon Transformers Animated.

There was a tight cluster of armour between Megatron's shoulder blades, the spinal strut beneath locked and tense. Hours sat in the throne unmoving would do it to any mech, even someone young, someone with well oiled-joints. Megatron, as much as he'd probably like to forget, was not young. He hadn't been young for a very long time.

Neither had Starscream.

He needed someone to work that tension out of him.

The problem was that Megatron wouldn't let anyone near him. Anyone. The only touch his thick armour received was from the knuckles of the enemy or the drag of Starscream's own defensive claws when he extended a thuggish hand to mangle a wing. He had no friends. He took no other lovers.

Sad. Pathetic really.

Starscream ignored how similar it was to his own lonely existence.

"You're tense." He noted, feeling brave and foolish but mostly just bored. It was either poke Megatron or harass Lugnut, and one of those things was vastly more satisfying than the other. And more dangerous too.

He stepped one elegant thruster in front of the other, making sure to cross his steps to make his hips sway, his wings swish. Megatron's dark focus remained on the stars beyond the viewport.

"I've been told I'm good with my hands." He added lightly.

Megatron blinked slowly, then lifted his optics to fix Starscream with a disdainful stare. He was either remembering the last time he'd allowed Starscream so close, or the aftermath of such a mistake, when he would have spent an hour in front of a mirror trying to repair the stab wound in his lower back afterwards- because, again, he disallowed touch. Even for repairs.

Starscream slinked closer, watching carefully at how Megatron's fingers pressed dents into the armrests of his throne, tightening with Starscream's every step.

It was hard for Megatron to push him away. He was so touch starved, so desperate for the physically he denied himself, that he'd accept affection from even his snake of a second.

Sad, Starscream thought again, moving past Megatron's throne to circle it, building up the courage to put himself within arms reach and his wings at risk. Sad, that Megatron would endanger himself so.  
  
Starscream flattened his wings to his back, letting them drape out of the way. Megatron's optics followed the movement. Starscream could never tell what he was thinking; that he wanted to run a finger over their edges? Wanted to stroke and caress the shimmering metal? Or was he thinking about crushing them under his thick digits? Crinkling them like tissue paper.

Neither of them wanted to show their hand first.

Starscream completed his slow circle and found himself stood over the throne. Megatron tilted his head up to meet his gaze, expression unreadable.

Starscream reached, slow and careful, for Megatron's black hand fisted against the armrest, slipping a taloned claw under Megatron's finger. The lightest of touches, he lifted it away from the dent it had made in the throne. Though Megatron himself gave no indication of wanting to rise out of it.

Starscream wasn't about to lower himself to tugging and pleading, corralling him out of his seat. He caressed Megatron's knuckle, massaging the one measly finger he had managed to win.

Slowly, the gears in Megatron's arm began to loosen. Fingers prised themselves away from their grip on the armrest to curl around his talons instead. Before Starscream knew it he was leading Megatron out of his seat by the hand, walking backwards to keep his wings safe behind him -to keep an optic on Megatron's unreadable expression.

"A massage?" Megatron finally spoke when the doors to the bridge closed behind them. His vocaliser was gravelly from his hours spent in stubborn silence. "There are subtler ways to have me turn my back."

_Yes, it would be far too obvious_, thought Starscream, leading him on, his claws cupped in Megatron's warm palm, _which is why you'd never suspect it._

"I'm feeling generous." He said instead, with a small smirk, palming the access panel for his command suite, knowing as soon as they were in there together it was would a free for all. One slip and Megatron would whip around and have him, and there'd be no escape hatch to leap through.

"Have you considered-" Megatron kept hold of his hand all the way to the berth, where he sat down and caught Starscream's hip, urging him into his lap. "-That we could forgo these games and simply enjoy an evening together?"

"I thought that's what we _were_ doing?" Starscream said slyly.

Megatron's stern face twitched. "... Of course." He murmured, with a tinge of what sounded like sadness. Because they both knew this wouldn't end well. It never did. It was simply a matter of who made the first move.

"Lie back." Starscream settled himself over Megatron's thighs, "Turn over."

So pathetic, Starscream thought, watching him do it, even though he _knew_ it was just a farce. They'd been here before a hundred times. Megatron would lower his guard and Starscream would strike, and it would all fail anyway. They'd both slink off to their own sides of the ship to lick their wounds and make their vengeful vows. Megatron -endeavouring to never to let someone so close again, and Starscream- to stop fragging well hesitating.

Megatron's back was tenser than it had been in the throne, stiff with anticipation. Starscream could pull a knife out of his subspace and drive it down between the seams in his armour, could sink it straight through his neck and slice the link between processor and spark.

He brought his hands to Megatron's shoulders and pressed down, circling his thumbs and spreading them outwards.

Beneath him the colossal frame deflated into the berth, limbs loosening and vents emptying with a deeply held breath.

Another day, Starscream thought to himself, watching Megatron's dark optics flicker offline in relief. There would be more opportunities to destroy Megatron.

But tonight, he needed touch more than he needed victory.


	11. Seekers & Constructicons - Vaccinations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated T. Minor warning for shots in the form of dart guns. Set G1.

There was no duty more intense, more high stakes, or more fun than immunisation day.

Energon on Earth was not at it's purest form, and no matter how throughly they filtered their fuel, microscopic impurities still seemed to be getting into their systems. The foreign particles clogged up their fuel lines and made them slow, cranky, and unwell. Hook's DIY solution to the problem was simple; a semi-regular injection of chemicals specially designed to flush their tank, pump, and fuel lines of the build up of impurities, so they would pass harmlessly through them, rather than congeal and gunk up vital hardware.

One prick of a tiny needle. That was all. And most self respecting Decepticons handled the monthly shot with typical bluster, or at the very least, stiff upper lips.

Only, there was one sub group of Decepticons who had absolutely no intention of facing the compulsory injection with any level of dignity whatsoever.

Scrapper activated his comm link, edging around a corner as stealthily as he could manage, audials catching the telling _clack clack clack_ of narrow heels on steel decking.

"Picking up thruster heels," he murmured into his gestalt's open channel. "Deck three. Forward of the mess."

"_Got it_," Scavenger's voice crackled back, an excited whisper. "_Approaching from the south. I can cut them off."_

Scrapper held his position and listened to the quickening clacks of thrusters against the decking, panicked and disorganised, like their owner was frantically looking for somewhere to hide. A moment passed, then-

_Pew_.

"Agh!" Ramjet's voice howled through the corridor. "Ugh, my _neck_!"

"I got him!" Scavenger called out, as if Scrapper hadn't already realised.

Scrapper poked his head around the corner to see the frustrated seeker. Ramjet was currently straining his arm joints trying to yank a red dart out of the back of his neck. Scrapper nodded to Scavenger in approval.

Another one down.

"Ramjet's worth fifty, right?" Scavenger adjusted his dart gun to rest it against his shoulder, surveying his hissing spitting catch like a proud hunter would a trophy.

Scrapper snorted. "It your dreams. Twenty points."

"_Twenty_ points!" Ramjet paused in his fussy fidgeting to straighten in offence and glare. "I'm worth more than that!"

"You have a lot of points to make up if you wanna catch up to Bonecrusher." Scrapper ignored Ramjet to tell Scavanger. "He caught Skywarp down in the engine rooms, so he's up a hundred points."

"Why is that moron worth more points than me!?" Ramjet was so distressed at the reveal of his 'worth' as a target, he appeared to have forgotten the trauma of being darted in the first place.

It was all for show. Bunch of drama queens.

"'Warp's a teleporter." Scavenger reminded Ramjet meekly, almost apologetic.

"What about Starscream? _He's_ hardly stealthy, I've got to be worth more than _him_ at least." Ramjet protested. "Right?!"

"Screamer's worth five hundred." Scrapper sighed, resting the butt of his own dart gun against the decking.

"Five _hundred_?!"

"He's not stealthy." Scavenger clarified sadly. "He doesn't even hide. He just stands next to Megatron. Last year..."

He trailed off, but Scrapper knew what his gestalt mate was referring to. Last year, Long Haul had been blinded by his competitiveness enough to fire on Starscream regardless of Megatron's proximity. One smooth sidestep on Starscream's part, and bam.

Immunisation dart right in the supreme leader''s aft.

Needless to say, Long Haul wasn't taking part in this years immunisation day.

"Who's left?" Scavenger asked, ignoring the last of Ramjet's resentful grumbling as the seeker stomped off, rubbing his neck.

"Just four. Thundercracker, Sunstorm, Thrust, and Screamer."

Scrapper's comm pinged with a message from Hook.

'_Caught Thundercracker in oil baths. Couldn't hold his breath as long as he thought he could_.'

"Make that three." He said solemnly, knowing the worst was to come.

As bad as it was trying to get a clear shot of the second in command, it would be worse if they failed to shoot him. Megatron would call their competency into question, and Starscream would become ill, unbearably grumpy, and impossible to work with.

"I've got a plan." Scavenger piped up.

Scrapper wasn't optimistic enough to believe him right off the bat, but, "Sure, I'm willing to try anything."

* * *

Starscream was indeed in the command centre, stood in plain sight - a supposedly easy shot to take. But he had, as tradition, positioned himself right at Megatron's flank as the warlord surveyed the monitors and occasionally spoke with Soundwave.

Every shift of Megatron's footing, every minor turn he made, Starscream moved with him, a vibrant tri-coloured shadow, a bare inch of space left between their frames.

Scrapper was unsure if Megatron was even aware of Starscream's proximity. He was unlikely to be accepting of his new little limpet, especially given how frequently the seeker had made attempts on his life.

Scrapper stepped out of the shadows, locking and loading his dart gun.

Starscream clocked him immediately and dropped his wings low to reduce his silhouette, shifting close enough to Megatron that his shoulder bumped the warlord's back. Megatron paused and glanced back at him, a frown forming.

On Scrapper's left, Mixmaster emerged from behind a monitor, also armed.

Starscream's head started snapping between them. He moved around Megatron, trying to put their leader between himself and their weapons.

And with Starscream now blocking the monitor he had been working at, Megatron looked increasingly irritated.

"Starscream," He growled.

"I just-" Starscream hurriedly brushed his hands over his leader's chest, removing invisible dust. "-saw a smudge. You're so dirty-"

Hook stepped through the doorway next, a gun in each servo. Starscream seemed to shrink.

Scavenger was the last to arrive, blocking the only other exit. Surrounded and spooked, Starscream pancaked himself to Megatron's front with a frightened squeal.

Megatron snarled and pushed him away. But Starscream came back, desperate for his protection.

"Get off, you fool!"

"No wait-!"

Megatron held Starscream at arms-length. Scrapper raised his weapon and took aim. His gestalt followed suit and-

With a chorus of _pews_ darts flew across the room. Starscream howled and threw his arms up defensively, but one clipped a wing.

"No!" He cried, ripping it out. "That _stings_!"

Scrapper saw the blue band around the dart when Starscream threw it down, indicating that it had been his, and pumped a fist in victory. He turned to gloat to his gestalt, but only glimpsed their backsides rushing through the command centre doors as they... fled?

"Guys?!"

A shadow fell over him.

Scrapper turned, and Megatron's great frame loomed overhead, another blue banded dart sticking out of the centre of his forehead.

Oh, not again.


	12. Optimus - Vibrator

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated E. Warnings for Sex Toys and Masturbation. Set TF Prime!

Optimus had all but given up hope of finding anything like a valve array stimulator on this planet. The one he had possessed -from Cybertron before the war, when such 'luxury' items were still common and widely available for purchase- had been lost long ago; blown up with a base, or pilfered among other personal effects by looting Decepticons.

He had resigned himself to making do, and simply hoped his frustration with the matter didn't leak over into his performance as a leader over his small band of Autobots.

Short of patience, he was thankful for June Darby's presence one evening when the children were behaving particularly boisterously. They were using one of the main screens to play some sort of racing simulator, and had corralled Bumblebee into joining them on the floor. As their competitiveness grew, as did their rambunctiousness.

Struggling to concentrate on a report, Optimus was growing close to reprimanding them, when next to him June threw down her magazine and went to do it for him, inspiring a chorus of groans and whines from the teenagers.

Optimus should have taken advantage of the reprieve in car-crash sound effects and excited hollering to finally read the sentence he had been struggling with for the last ten minutes, when the folded open magazine June had left behind caught his optic.

Carefully, he plucked the thick glossy magazine up between two pinched digits, laying it across his palm to see the full page. It was an advertisement, for a brightly coloured, artfully-designed device. '**Powerful Dual Vibrator With Twisting Bead Shafts'** the advertisement boosted. '**10 speeds**', it continued, '**Powerful**', '**Intense**', '**Life-like**'.

'**Deeply satisfying climaxes**'.

"Optimus?" June called up to him, searching around her seat. "Have you seen my-?"

She looked up, clocked what he was holding, and began to turn pink. "Oh," she laughed with embarrassment, holding her hands up to receive it back. "I don't think that's the sort of reading you'd be interested in, Optimus."

Optimus kept the page open and dropped his palm so June could retrieve it. Her flush darkened at the sight of the open page. "Oh _God_."

"It was an interesting read." He reassured her. "And an enlightenment. I had not realised how ...alike our species could be."

June was clutching the magazine to her chest, face twisting in confusion. "I'm ...not sure what you _think_ that thing was for, Optimus, but it's-"

"-A devise designed to stimulate and pleasure." Optimus confirmed, keeping his voice low so not to alert the children. "We had similar 'toys' on Cybertron."

June was staring at him like her brain had just imploded inside her skull. She wasn't capable of responding for a good few seconds.

"_Ohh_." She finally said, voice low with understanding.

"Where might I purchase one of these 'vibrators'?"

June seemed to have transcended disbelief completely and had decided to simply roll with it.

"They're designed for humans." She said gently. "Some are big for show, but ...you -they'd be no good for anyone _your_ size."

"I assure you." Optimus straightened. "It is not necessarily 'size' I am interested in."

* * *

Optimus had long ago learned that the most valuable of allies were often the least likely. June asked no questions, passed no judgment, and told no one when he ordered the model that looked the most promising and had it delivered to her home. She arrived with it just the next day, box tucked under her arm, fielding curious questions from her son about what the package was.

"Not for you." She said pointedly, and climbed up the stairs so Optimus didn't have to bend so dramatically to reach when she held it up.

The box was light, and admittedly smaller than he had expected. But of course, he reminded himself, this was made for human stimulation.

"It's small. Try not to get it ...lost." She advised.

"Get what lost?" Jack's clueless voice asked, popping up behind his mother.

"What have I told you about eavesdropping?!"

Optimus tucked the package away in his subspace, resolving himself to waiting just a while longer to explore it's capabilities, but in a better mood already just for it's existence.

He waited until the children had returned home and his mechs had sent themselves off to recharge. He retreated to his room, bolting the door behind him, just in case someone came barging in in the middle of the night with some sort of emergency.

Emergencies could wait for tonight, he told himself, carefully opening the flimsy cardboard box and tipping it's contents out onto his recharge slab. Among the packing peanuts sat a phallic, glittery, pink and purple, finger-size (for him, at least) device. It was, as June had embarrassingly told him, more of a fantasy, a decorative piece, designed for display more than actual use. Too big for any humans to 'realistically enjoy'.

But almost enough for him.

He dropped back across his recharge slab and activated the control on it's base. It began to buzz and whir. He touched it with his finger, testing the strength of it's vibration, then turned it up to it's maximum setting.

It wouldn't be anything like want he used to from a Cybertronian stimulator, but it had been so long, at this point, he was willing to take anything.

He opened his panels and brought the vibrator to his anterior node, pressing the buzzing tip directly against his swelling anterior node.

His moan rattled the metal walls. 

"Oh, _Primus_, yes."


	13. Megatron/Starscream - Cuddles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated G. Warnings for mild fluff, of a huddling for warmth variety. Set whatever continuity really.

The hidden bunker stationed on the uninhibited moon, Infinity Seven, wasn't heated.

Starscream soon came to realise that reading that information on a report and experiencing it firsthand were two completely separate things.

He understood now, huddled on the frosty metal floor, toe pedes numb and wings shaking hard enough to blur the tips, why Megatron had inflicted the honour of this week-long stakeout mission on him.

'Too important for anyone else' his _aft_. This was a punishment!

He cast a resentful glare Megatron's way, breath clouding in the air the instant it passed his lips. Megatron was propped up against his own corner of the bunker, glancing through the tiny slot in the wall towards the empty spaceport they were staking out.

An undersized insulation sheet hung off his shoulders. It was nowhere near big enough for his larger frame, but that's what happened when you didn't move fast enough and call first dibs. Starscream wrapped his own much _larger_ insulation sheet tighter around himself, trying to adjust it so it better covered the delicate, temperature-sensitive tips of his wings.

"This is ridiculous," He hissed, warm breath curling into wisps in the frigid air.

"It's been two hours," Megatron murmured, glaring through the slot. "You've always been impatient-"

"It's not the waiting that's ridiculous!" Starscream snarled, wriggling down into the sheet. "It's _cold_."

Megatron glanced at him with a crease in his brow, as though he somehow hadn't _noticed_ the rapid drop in temperature since the moon's closest star had fallen behind them. His stupid, dim optics tracked up and down Starscream's shivering form. Starscream tightened the insulation sheet around himself, tucking his chin close to his chest.

"Stop it."

Megatron turned his attention back to the view. "Stop what?"

"You know what."

Megatron snorted, hot vents spewing fog like an angry dragon. The insulation sheet slipped down his shoulder, but he barely noticed.

But of course. A little thing like subzero temperatures couldn't possibly breach industrial armour like Megatron's. He likely _didn't_ notice the cold if he barely looked up when _blaster bolts_ were pinging off his armour.

"Give me that." Starscream thrust a hand out of his cocoon of warmth to point at Megatron's own cover.

"You already have something to keep you warm," Megatron murmured, not bothering to look at him this time. "I won't be giving you mine."

"You have armour!"

"And you do not?"

"It's-" Starscream increased his own core temperature through sheer frustration. "It's thin armour. To fly. It's not fragging - twenty metres thick! Like yours!"

To Starscream's amazement, Megatron began to shrug the sheet from his shoulders with a weary sounding groan. He rose, joints creaking -less protected from the cold than his well insulated internals- and lumbered over.

Starscream shrank in his sheets, optics bright with disbelief when the sheet was extended. He lifted a cautious hand to take it, and it was deliciously warmed by Megatron's excess heat. He hastily tossed it around himself, sighing in relief at the newfound coziness, all the while trying to ignore the lingering smell of gunpowder and grease Megatron had left on he fabric.

It was almost perfect, until Megatron decided to lean against the wall and slide down to sit next to him.

"Hmph!" Starscream protested, mouth covered with the fabric, when Megatron's big thigh knocked his.

"If you're really that cold, you won't complain." Megatron growled, and with all the care and grace of a glitch-tiger with it's prey, tossed an arm around Starscream's covered shoulders and dragged him the rest of the way in.

Stiff with the cold and unwilling to struggle lest it let more of the cold air in, Starscream simply scowled and allowed the manhandling, quickly finding himself in a highly undignified position under Megatron's massive arm.

Wedged tightly in place, trapped by an arm and his own cocoon of sheets, Megatron's vents opened and expelled engine heat like a furnace over him. Starscream was unable to bite back a moan of relief, but it was, thankfully, muffled by all the sheets.

He sat stiffly for a while -scowling and refusing to let himself enjoy their close proximity any more than was strictly necessary- until the hand over his shoulder began to wander up his neck. Megatron's fingers were warm. Starscream leant into it. Rough but warm knuckles stroked his freezing cheek.

"You are cold." Megatron finally acknowledged.

"_You_ should have brought more _insulation,_" Starscream snarled.

"I'll remember for next time."

"There won't be a next time," Starscream growled, but it lost some of it's heat with how much he was leaning into Megatron's light, but _needed_ touches. He wriggled closer. His treacherous engines started to pure as they finally began to warm.

Megatron gripped the edge of Starscream's carefully arranged sheets and began to pull them away. Feeling the breeze, Starscream began to hiss, claws ready.

"Don't fuss," Megatron warned, and only moved the sheets aside enough to press their armour together. It was like leaning against one of the Nemesis's power cells. Starscream melted a little, letting his head drop, his cheek falling to a broad, flat chest.

Megatron folded the covers back over them both to better trap the heat.

"Don't read anything into this," Starscream warned, sliding his arms across Megatron's armour, warming his frozen finger tips and letting his limbs curl around him.

Megatron looked down at the seeker cuddled to his chest. He could still just about see through the slot in the bunker's wall to the spaceport outside, so there was no need to move any time soon.

"Wouldn't dream of it," He purred, patting Starscream's cold head.

It was testament to how comfortable Starscream was that he didn't rear up and stab him with his claws to punish the familiarity.

Maybe he _could_ be convinced to come on another stakeout with Megatron, though perhaps one with a more agreeable climate.

It would be more difficult to think up an excuse to cuddle one another that didn't involve preventing frostbite, but he was sure he could manage it.


	14. Megatron/Starscream - Turbines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The random number generator is really liking this pairing at the moment. 
> 
> Rated M, for sleazy motels, turbine worship, and Megatron's obvious fetish. Set ???

There was no better way to spend shore leave, Starscream thought to himself, lazily reclined across a cheap motel berth, staring up at the stains on the ceiling.

Once every six months the _Nemesis_ docked for supplies and the rank-and-files revelled in the opportunity to escape the ship and take in the local sights of the whatever backwater spaceport Megatron had chosen to source his cheap, subpar necessities from.

Having no interest in drinking himself into a stupor at whatever sad excuse that passed for a bar this side of nowhere, Starscream often elected to stay aboard the _Nemesis_ and catch up on paperwork, or take advantage of the peace and quiet that reigned in the crew's absence to plot.

He hadn't been alone in that respect though. Megatron, the resident misery, would also rather stew in his own loneliness and spend the forty eight hours the _Nemesis_ was docked holed up aboard the ship.

It was a large ship, so avoiding one another should have been easy.

_Should_ have been.

Starscream blamed boredom for how they had ...come together in those lonely forty eight hours. Shore leave was technically off-shift, so they weren't commander and subordinate, and it seemed that was all it took to get Megatron to unclench enough to actually allow Starscream to approach. And in that proximity they found _many_ an inventive way to pass the time.

Unfortunately, even during shore leave the _Nemesis_ wasn't entirely vacant, and fragging one another across whatever surface they could find was hardly a subtle way to go about having a secret affair. The amount of times Soundwave had almost walked in on them in a compromising position had been starting to close in on double digits.

So a change of locale was necessary.

Megatron had grumpily argued that carrying on their illicit activities outside the bulkheads of the ship was the opposite of a solution. Decepticons were prowling the spaceport docks, crawling over the bars and brothels, and it only took one gossiping seeker to see them together, off duty, to put two and two together.

So beneath his dignity it may have been, Starscream sought out the sleaziest, cheapest, dirtiest motel the spaceport had to offer -and that was saying something- and spent two hours lounging about in the room, waiting for Megatron to arrive an appropriately unsuspicious time later.

The door to the motel room creaked open, un-oiled and malfunctioning. Megatron shouldered through the doorway, large and grumpy and tense from the six months they'd both spent in abstinence, pretending to hate one another.

Starscream stretched his frame out luxuriously, trying to make the cheap, unembellished berth appealing. From across the room he heard Megatron's low rumble of satisfaction.

"Were you seen?" he growled from the doorway.

"For frags sake, Megatron," Starscream rolled his head across the pillows. "We've wasted enough time as it is without you interrogating me."

"If this were to get out-" Megatron began, approaching the berth.

"Nothing would change," Starscream growled, snagging an armour seam in Megatron's pelvis when he felt the cheap berth dip under the larger mech's weight. He drew Megatron close, sighing as the hot exhale of Megatron's vents washed over him.

A hand smoothed over his armour, finger pads brushing the smooth glass of his cockpit and sliding up to cup his turbine. He purred, and Megatron dropped his mouth to it, tongue lapping over the tip and diving between the fan blades.

Sensors lit up and Starscream arched into the sensation, grasping the back of Megatron's head as his turbine was lavished with attention. The stimulation encouraged the blades to turn slowly, and Megatron grunted when his tongue was almost caught.

"Be careful," Starscream sighed, writhing under him.

"Control yourself," Megatron grunted back. He finished with a sucking kiss and moved his head across to the other turbine, swirling his tongue over the tip. He used his hand to massage the turbine he wasn't mouthing it, griping it roughly, spinning it manually with his thumb, pressing down against the tip.

Starscream moaned, and Megatron flinched back when the blades span suddenly. "Starscream."

"I can't help it," He hissed. "You're taking your life into your own hands if you want to do that-"

Megatron growled, and despite the risks and Starscream's own warnings, ducked his head and sucked on the tip again. Starscream mewled, scratching the back of Megatron's head and _forcing_ the sensitive turbine components to remain still and _not_ slice Megatron's tongue off.

The irony was how all these years Starscream had been convinced that the biggest fetish in regards to his frame-type had been his wings. They were where mech's optics seemed to track to, what their gazes followed when Starscream walked. What they were always grabbing for. It was probably why it had taken him so long to realise Megatron had an interest in him. He never ogled his wings, his attention had been ...elsewhere.

"Megatron," He moaned, writhing in delight, lifting his legs and locking them around Megatron's thick waist.

Megatron rumbled, nipping lightly at the tip of his turbine.

Starscream yelped at the sting. The blades span, something caught, and Megatron grunted in pain, head snapping back and hand flying to his mouth.

Starscream stilled, staring.

After a moment, Megatron removed his hand to reveal a cut lip. Starscream couldn't help but smirk at his petulant face.

"I _told you_ to be careful," He teased, letting the blades turn slowly on purpose now.

Megatron's optics dimmed at the sight. He wiped the energon away with the back of his hand. "Open your panels, you little tease."


	15. Knock Out/Megatron - Shine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set Transformers Prime. Rated M. Warnings for implied oral sex.

Starscream's absence from the _Nemesis_ created more than one gap in Megatron's daily routine. His time brooding on the throne was doubly productive without the shrill whining of a seeker fretting over menial details, and with the added bonus of no longer having to be on constant alert to acts of treachery and betrayal, Megatron found his processor defragmented and free enough to wander for the first time in centuries.

Day-dreams weren't often a luxury he afforded himself. They meant less room for schemes and paperwork and programmes running hypothetical battle simulations, but without the Starscream-induced migraine, or the need for his defence systems to be online and at maximum settings around the clock, there was just enough processing power left to let a bit of his creative programming run away with itself.

He sat with his chin propped atop his fist, sprawled regally in his throne as he imagined a decaying Earth; ash under his pedes, blood on his hands, and dark energon rushing through his frame. He could almost taste the smoke on his glossa, feel the heat of flames licking at his scarred back as the worthless planet Prime cherished so much _burned_.

His chest filled with a deep sense of satisfaction at the thought. His optics dimmed as he relaxed to that imagery.

His pleasant imaginings were interrupted when the doors to his throne room swept open, casting the burning landscape and Prime's spark-broken optics away into the recesses of his mind, leaving him frustrated and impatient.

"What?!" He barked at the shadowy doorway.

Red armour flashed under the overhead lighting, and for a moment Megatron's spark doubled it's pulse rate when his still active creative programming brought up the unsolicited reminder of how good a certain _seeker's_ previously colourful frame used to look under the lights of his throne room.

He felt a swell of disappointment when it was Knock Out who stepped out of the shadows, and not a physical embodiment of the brief but happy time in his long life, and in the equally long war. Back when Starscream had still had a trine, and wits equal to beauty.

"Lord Megatron, sir," Knock Out offered awkwardly, stopping halfway to the throne. He held an evening status update in datapad-form in his hand, ready to deliver it.

It was more practical to simply send information to one another digitally, but having the evening report delivered by hand was usually a menial task Megatron inflicted on Starscream as petty punishment. Given the seeker's absence the task had, naturally, fallen to the medic instead.

Soundwave certainly wouldn't have lowered himself to the role of messenger drone.

Megatron held out a large servo, claws beckoning. Knock Out approached, lacking his usual cocky swagger. He kept his head down and armour locked tight. His cringing awkwardness continued to remind Megatron of his banished second.

A banished second now incapable of fulfilling _any_ of his duties -not just errand mech.

Megatron took the datapad but didn't look at it, instead taking the opportunity to study Knock Out more closely.

Without Starscream present to suck up all the attention in the room like the galaxy's neediest black hole, there were no flapping wings or indignant screeches to distract Megatron from Knock Out's incredibly high-maintenance but aesthetically pleasing frame.

Knock Out cleared his vocaliser, waiting to be dismissed.

Megatron snapped his gaze away from the shine of light against Knock Out's rounded chassis, feeling an idea forming, helped a great deal by the more decadent, less logical thoughts brewing in his still active creative programming. Thoughts like running his hands over glossy red paint, of watching streaks of lights dance on glimmering, shifting armour.

"The repair bay must feel rather empty in Breakdown's absence," he decided to break the ice.

Knock Out blinked. He was surprised by the sudden mention of the fallen Decepticon, but gave no other indication that he was in mourning for his lost partner.

"...I find ways to entertain myself, sir," He said easily, cool and unbothered. A complete opposite to the ever emotional, ever dramatic Starscream. It wasn't quite as entertaining, but Megatron didn't mind. It wasn't Knock Out's aloof _personality_ that interested him tonight.

"You're not having second thoughts?" Knock Out continued bravely, "About banishing Commander St-"

"No," Megatron interrupted quickly, not even wanting to hear that thought voiced aloud. He spread his thighs invitingly, as far as they had room to go in the throne, and tilted his head coyly, offering Knock Out a smirk. "_He_ could not be further from my mind."

Knock Out looked between his wide lap and his face, far too curious to turn down such a offer, but hesitant. "Oh, _I see_," he drawled, shifting so the shine of his paint caught the lights again. "Am I expected to fulfil _all_ of Starscream's duties in his absence?"

"His _privileges_," Megatron corrected, lifting a large brow high and patting a thick thigh.

Knock Out's mouth pulled wryly at the corner. Something was holding him back. He looked down at his own highly glossed paint, then back at Megatron's thick, durable armour.

"Forgive me, sir. I'd love to ..._join_ you, but I've spent many an hour buffing out the scratches and scuffs in Commander Starscream's bodywork after he's performed his -I apologise, after he's been _rewarded_ his privileges, to know those claws of yours don't handle with care." He held his elegant arms up. "And I've just had a new coat of paint, see? Perhaps, if I...?" He trailed off, but dropped elegantly to his knees before Megatron's throne.

Not at all an unpleasant sight to look down on.

Nevertheless, Megatron rolled his optics. Always the fussy ones. He opened his panel, tilting his hips forward. "The vanity of race cars," he complained. 

Knock Out tipped his head, his armour mesmerisingly glossy. "Something we have in common with our seeker cousins," he purred knowingly.

Megatron leant back and shuttered his optics, letting Knock Out have that one. He watched through the slits in his shutters as Knock Out's helm dropped to his lap, highly shined armour shifting sensually.

He'd always been a soft touch for a mech in polished armour...


	16. Skywarp/Thundercracker - Inseparable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys want some fluff? 
> 
> Rated G. Warnings none.

Life was busy for first year recruits at the war academy, so Thundercracker and Skywarp made sure to put their free time -and the measly living allowance the academy afforded them- to good use. For their one rare night off that week they had made plans to see a performance of Crystal Lake at the Vosian Contemporary Performance Theatre. Plans that now looked to be in tatters after Starscream had argued his lab partners out of assisting him in a vital experiment taking place that same evening, and then _demanded_ they stepped in in their place.

"We had plans," Thundercracker tried, not even starting on the fact that neither him nor Skywarp were trained for this sort of thing. "To see the new performance of Crystal Lake."

"The Princess dies at the end," Starscream spoilt the ending without a hint of remorse, not even bothering to look up. "These are your plans now."

Starscream's spiteful spoiling not enough to dissuade them from going anyway, Thundercracker was relieved when the experiment ended in relatively good time. If they rushed, they could make it before the second act.

"If we _teleport_ we won't miss any of it." Skywarp offered Thundercracker his hand, wriggling his fingers enticingly.

Thundercracker looked at that hand, and swallowed thickly. "Er..."

They were still early into their trine courtship, and still getting to know one another, which was Thundercracker's only excuse for why he had yet to actually join Skywarp on one of his warp jumps.

He wasn't up to speed on how the technical aspects of how the warp drive worked -that was Starscream's area of expertise- but what he did understand was that it required a great deal of processing power to operate. Most mechs were unsuitable to possess one simply because their minds couldn't keep up with the required calculations.

And Skywarp wasn't exactly the academic of the year.

He stepped back. "I think I'll pass."

Skywarp's face fell into a frown. "But we'll miss it!"

"We can fly," Thundercracker suggested his original plan again, "and we might make it by the second act-"

"But then I won't know what's going on," Skywarp complained. He thrust his hand out again, "_C'mon_. I promise it's not scary-"

"I'm not _scared_." Thundercracker puffed out his chest. "I just don't know if you're..." He trailed off.

"If I'm what?" Skywarp's reassuring smile fell away.

"Look," Thundercracker sighed. "I've seen what happens when a warp isn't correctly calculated. If you lose concentration we could end up in a wall, or a mile below the surface, or missing body parts, or-"

Skywarp's face was aghast. "If I don't _concentrate_?! What the Pit is that supposed to mean?!"

"Warp drives are hard to operate!" Thundercracker cried. "That's all."

"And _you_ think it's above my processing capacity," Skywarp hissed, pointing at him condemningly. "_You_ think I'm stupid!"

"No I-"

"I'm smarter than _you_!" Skywarp argued. "Pit, I'm probably even smarter than Screamer! Because you know what? It _is_ hard to warp. And neither of you could ever even dream of doing it!"

"Skywarp, please," Thundercracker pleaded."Let's just fly to the show and-"

"No, I'm warping." Skywarp folded his arms and stepped away, turning his chin up. "You can fly and miss half of it since you're so sure I'd get you killed."

"Warp, you know I didn't mean it like-"

"_Bye_, TC," Skywarp sneered, and purple light cracked across his armour as he began to activate the drive.

"Wait!" Thundercracker cried and leapt forward, arm outstretched to stop him. He wouldn't be able to enjoy the performance if he had to sit there the whole time knowing Skywarp was mad at him, and that he fully deserved it.

"Thundercracker!" Skywarp yelped when his hand made contact with his forearm. His optics grew to spotlights, but the purple crackling light didn't recede. His panicked cry was enough to make Thundercracker try and pull back at the last second, but he could already feel the gravitational tug of the warp drive. He was caught in it's field.

He cried out and tried to leap out of range, but Skywarp's hand shot out and grabbed his. Thundercracker squeezed it tight, shuttering his optics against the blinding surge of lilac, bracing himself against tugging sensations coming from all directions and the heavy feeling in the pit of his tanks as his atoms were electrified by the teleportational current.

It felt like the world had flipped him a full three hundred and sixty degrees when his gyros finally stopped spinning and his pedes hit the ground.

"Woah!" He swayed, lifting a hand to his head to settle his spinning processor. His other hand was still tightly gripped in Skywarp's own. "That was..."

He looked himself over. His entire frame was present and above the surface, and looking around himself he could see they were stood on a bridge across from the theatre. They'd done it. A perfect warp.

Wow, he was a jerk.

He turned apologetic optics on a friend that very much deserved an apology.

"Skywarp, I-"

Skywarp was pale and wide optic'd though. "Why'd you do that?! Why'd you grab me?!"

"I didn't want you leave in the middle of an argument," Thundercracker tried to pull his hand out of Skywarp's.

"I'm still practicing," Skywarp cried. "You can't just attach yourself to me last second! I- I need more of a warning!"

"It was an accident," Thundercracker frowned, yanking on his hand. "Warp, let go."

"I can't," Skywarp hissed through his denta.

"What are you talking about?" Thundercracker used his other hand to try and peel Skywarp's digits away from his hand. If he didn't know any better, they'd fused to his armour. "What-?"

"We're stuck."

"What do you mean we're-?" Thundercracker tugged their hands again, yanking Skywarp closer.

"I made a mistake, okay!" Skywarp yelled, cheeks hot and flushed. "I miscalculated. Your- your armour is fused to mine..."

He ducked his head and glared at the ground.

Thundercracker looked at their joined hands.

"Well I guess there are worse places to get stuck together," he said gently. "Sorry, it's not your fault. And you're not stupid. And this? It could have happened to anybody."

"Guess we're gonna miss the performance, huh?"

"No way," Thundercracker began tugging him along by the hand, marching towards the theatre to catch the closing doors. "We can get this fixed afterwards. Starscream owes us a favour, remember?"

Skywarp smirked and skipped forward to take the lead as they hurried, hand-in-hand, across the bridge. "Let's go! Before we miss the start!"


	17. Starscream/Skyfire - Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set Pre-War Cybertron. Warnings for injury and minor acid burns. Rated G.

Starscream really wanted to know what gave Skyfire the goddamn right to be so tall.

Sure, he was shuttle and taller stature came with the territory, but was it quite so necessary to shove it in Starscream's face all the time? Skyfire was always looming, always blocking out the overhead lights, always sucking up all the air in the room, and just generally being the biggest nuisance he possibly could be.

Starscream was a tolerant, accommodating person, so he could cope with Skyfire's utter inappropriateness with relative ease. But other students at the academy weren't likely to be as accepting. Starscream was doing the big lug a favour really, _allowing_ him to be his partner.

The other problem with getting saddled with Skyfire was that they had been assigned the 'large' lab. Ordinarily, Starscream would have enjoyed the extra space and considered it a benefit -if it was actually spaciousness that made it the 'large' lab, and not it's ridiculous height. It possessed a ceiling triple the height of the rest of the science block, with cabinets and shelves that rose just as high, impossible for someone of normal, average stature to reach.

Starscream glared at his vial of hydrochloric acid atop one of these shelves in question._ He_ certainly hadn't leapt up there and placed it in the least convenient place possible, so he turned narrowed optics on Skyfire's hunched back, surprised the large shuttle couldn't hear his teeth grinding together from across the room.

There were no ladders, and the lab was filled with too many flammable substances to justify Starscream using his thrusters to boost himself up there, but he wasn't going to lower himself to clambering atop the counters like a sparkling on an expedition for energon-cookies, nor was he going to suffer the humiliation of _asking_ Skyfire to get it back down for him.

It wasn't his wisest decision, but in his frustration and impatience, he picked up a nearby datapad and flung it at the vial on the shelve. The datapad hit the edge of shelve and vial shifted, but didn't topple over the edge. Skyfire looked up at the clatter curiously, so Starscream made sure to glare and stand with his arms folded, a more than obvious suggestion his lab partner mind his own fragging business.

Skyfire, still hunched ridiculously over his files, offered him a shy, apologetic smile and turned back to his work.

Starscream ignored the swell of warmth in his spark, rolling his optics.

He picked up another datapad and threw it at the vial too. Harder this time. Hard enough to crack the glass of the datapad when it hit the wall and smacked the vial right off the shelf.

Starscream made a panicked noise when instead of falling easily into his outstretched hand, the vial of corrosive chemicals cartwheeled through the air towards Skyfire's unsuspecting back and wings.

"Watch out!" He squawked, tripping over wires as he scrambled to drive for it.

Skyfire looked up, and with startling reflexes Starscream would never have expected of a big cumbersome shuttle, caught the vial one-handed.

Skyfire glanced at the label and frowned. "Did you throw this at me?"

Starscream could feel his face heating up. "No!" He snatched the vial back, hiding it behind his back. "Of course not! That would breach lab safety regulations!"

"You breach those all the time," Skyfire smiled softly.

Starscream couldn't tell if he was joking or not. He squeezed the vial so hard it was in danger of shattering in his hand and melting through his armour. "You'd be wise to keep comments like that to yourself." He warned.

Skyfire held up his hands innocently. "Then why did you throw that vial of hydrochloric acid at me?"

"I didn't-!" Starscream stamped his thruster. "I was getting it down from the shelf!" Starscream pointed at the offending shelf in question, hoping Skyfire took note of it's ridiculously high position. "Because _someone_ here thinks it's _funny_ to put my work out of reach," he huffed and lifted his chin. 'Believe me, if I wanted you killed or maimed, I'd have already done it by now."

Skyfire didn't comment on that worrying sentence, instead frowning at the shelf in concern as he rubbed the back of his neck, having now realised he'd been the cause of the inconvenience. "Sorry Starscream, sometimes I just don't-"

"-Think?" Starscream interrupted. "What a surprise."

"If you need me to get something down-"

"The only thing I_ need_ _you_ to do is keep your giant clumsy servos off my work."

Skyfire stared at him. "...We're doing the same project."

"_I'm_ doing the project," Starscream sneered. "I don't know what _you're_ doing."

Skyfire lifted the datapad he's been scribbling notes on all week. "Writing everything down."

Starscream turned his nose up. Like he had time for something as plebeian as _writing things down_. All his notes are stored up in his own processor, where he could be sure it would be safe from prying rivals.

"Maybe if you remembered to hand in the written half of your work once and awhile you wouldn't be scraping through with B's?" Skyfire teased, mouth curved into -if Starscream didn't know better- a _smirk_?!

"Scraping through!" He screeched, hands clenching into fists. He heard a crack, and his servo was sudden on _fire_!

"Argh!" He flailed, flicking glass and acid everywhere.

"Let me see, _let me see_," Skyfire was suddenly there, right in front of him. Or his abdomen was, at least. Starscream felt his face warm up again as he pursed his lips against the pain and embarrassment of having injured himself so stupidly.

Skyfire dragged him to the chemical burn station and Starscream kept himself grumpily silent for the duration of the treatment, all the while hating Skyfire for his top of the class ranking, and his unearned smugness, and his big stupid, gentle servos, so carefully wrapping his damaged servo.

"Are you _done_ yet," he muttered, looking away and scowling so Skyfire wouldn't see his burning cheeks.

"Almost," Skyfire said warmly, patting his wrapped hand. "Just one more thing."

Starscream turned and glared at Skyfire just as the shuttle leant over his hand and pressed a ghost of a kiss to the back of the wrapped servo. Starscream stiffened.

"There," Skyfire said, oblivious to how completely moronic he was. "All done."

Starscream withdrew his hand from Skyfire's grasp slowly, glare disgusted.

"Cute," he muttered. "But it still hurts."

Skyfire held out his hand. "Want me to kiss it again?"

Starscream's glare darkened.

He thrust his hand back at Skyfire. "Yes."


	18. Jazz/Prowl - Microphone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated M. Warnings for Accidental Exhibitionism and Implied Sticky. Set G1 Cartoon.

The Ark Interceptor, like most large vessels, was fitted with a vast speaker system, heard in every room both communal and private to broadcast everything from boring daily public announcements, to emergency klaxons and fire-drills. Red Alert, always somewhat more exuberant in his duties than was strictly necessary, liked to abuse this system, using it beyond what it had been designed for to stir up panic and run unapproved drills.

Mostly in the middle of the night.

Or early in the morning.

Needless to say, the PA system lasted a week in Red Alert's hands before Optimus strolled onto the bridge half way through one of these unexpected 3am fire-drills and ripped the entire announcement system straight from Teletraan one's console. With his bare hands. Right in front of Red Alert.

And it hadn't been fixed since.

And it wasn't meant to have _ever_ been fixed.

Until an ...unfortunate incident between the Dinobots and super computer led to the entire security system requiring a repair. Optimus could only assume Wheeljack must have not bothered to read the little message he had left him in the repair notes; '_do NOT fix the PA system'._

Because someone fixed the PA System.

It was a fact that did, thankfully, go unnoticed by Red Alert, and everyone else for that matter. And so life continued on without 3am fire drills regardless. No harm done.

Until one night, when the system clicked back on.

The initial zap and buzz of static went unnoticed by the majority of the ship, most dozing in their quarters or in the wash-racks, getting ready for a long boring night-duty, until a sharp, staticky gasp of breath vibrated the speakers.

Optimus, who had been frowning at a police incident report detailing the antics of a 'self-driving Lamborghini' doing donuts around one of the squad cars, looked up in surprise.

"_Jazz_..." the next static laced moaned sounded an awful lot like his head saboteur's designation.

Optimus sat up, adjusting the setting on his audials, wondering if it had been his imagination, or if he really had just heard-

"_Jazz!"_ There was it was again, louder, clearer, and definitely Prowl gasping his lover's name in the throes of ecstasy.

Optimus stood up quickly. There was a dull _thump, thump, thumping_ noise carrying on in the background, noticeable even amongst the heavy static. He stumbled out of his office and adopted a long, fast stride to get to the bridge.

The broadcast stayed with him out into the corridor, played louder through the outter speakers. There was a grunt, and shuddering gasp. "_Oh Primus, Prowler, do that again_."

Optimus walked faster.

He passed another office, where Ironhide was stood in the doorway, staring at the speaker mounted on the ceiling with a stunned, horrified expression. "That ain't-?"

"Not now!" Optimus barked.

"_Faster, Jazz_," Prowl demanded over the speaker, "_Frag yes-!"_

Optimus started running.

Along the way the passed the recreational room and heard the howling cheers from within. "Prime! Prime, are you hearing this-!?" He heard someone call to him.

Of course he was hearing it! Where did they think he was sprinting too?!

The thumping noise in the background was getting louder and more frequent, Prowl's moans were growing sharper, and Jazz was sounding smugger. Optimus grit his denta and pushed the gears in his legs to the max. He could see the doors to the bridge now.

"_Yes, yes, yes, **YES**_-!"

Optimus burst through the doors to a sight he had never expected, nor wanted, to see. Prowl was on his back sideways across Teletraan one's console, his legs up and wrapped tightly around Jazz's waist. He had his head thrown back as he howled in overload, Jazz's continued thrusts shunting him up the console.

The open door behind Optimus was broadcasting a split-second echo of Prowl's moaning in real time. The noise attracted Jazz's attention. He looked up, his visor bright and stunned.

"Prime?!" His aghast cry was _also_ picked up by the microphone.

Optimus rushed forward.

Jazz yelled out, just as Prowl regained enough of his senses after his overload to demand, in his most serious, no-nonsense tone of voice, "What are you _**doing, **_Prime?"

Optimus ignored their entangled positioning. He ducked his head, ripped the wires out of the microphone receiver, and tore the entire blasted thing out. The speakers clicked off, leaving the halls and quarters of the ship blissfully free of static and moaning lieutenants.

Prowl and Jazz were staring at the dangling cables in Optimus's hand, their flushed faces rapidly losing colour. "Was that ...on?"

Optimus looked between the wires and his officers, his spark wilting with sympathy. "...Only for a moment," he lied. "I'm ...sure no one heard."

Somewhere in the hallway outside, someone who sounded distinctly like Sideswipe, started doing a startlingly good impression of Prowl in the midst of his overload. Optimus cleared his throat and looked aside.

"Well, perhaps one or two people heard..."


	19. Megatron/Starscream - Languid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set G1 cartoon. Rated E. Warnings for Sleepy Sex and Megatron nearly crushing Starscream with his giant twenty tonne aft.

It was well past midnight when Starscream heard him come in. 

The base was silent save for the creaks of the sunken warship's metal bulkheads and the pressure of salt water bearing down on it, so the hiss and slide of a door was unmistakeable. He couldn't be bothered to online his optics, and laid still on his berth, face half buried in a over-stuffed pillow, insulation sheet fallen about his waist, below flicking wings. 

He could near his visitors vents, the rush of air moving in and out of them, the hum of powerful engines, the quiet hiss of hydraulics, and the whir of gears moving powerful limbs. 

Half asleep, he didn't want to get up. He grunted into the pillow, a vague noise to let his visitor know he was awake, and aware of his presence. 

The berth frame groaned when weight dropped to it, and the insulation sheet began to slide away from his legs. He curled them closer to his frame to ward off the chill of air, but that was soon replaced by the heavy exhale of a larger mech's vents. He smelt gun-powder and fusion cells, grease and iron, dirt and salt water, as the silent presence loomed over him. 

"Megatron," he whined, but with his lazy glossa it sounded like an unintelligible grumble. 

A huge hand slipped around and under his frame, spanning the breadth of his cockpit. Slowly he was turned onto his back. He frowned in annoyance, but flopped over obediently, too tired to move, but resisting would have required even more effort. 

He felt Megatron lean over him, a presence looming close to his face before a nose brushed his own in the lightest of nuzzles. Despite himself, he accepted the touch with an interested purr. 

He had invited Megatron to his quarters, yes, but he had rather hoped the mech would have the decency to arrive at a more appropriate hour. It was no good resisting him now though, he thought to himself sleepily, stretching his frame out when that big nose moved down the side of his head and buried itself in his neck. Megatron exhaled against him, warm and intimate. 

Starscream squirmed, blinking his optics online and giving Megatron an inpatient look. "Will you just get on with it." 

Megatron grumbled wordlessly, just as mulish awake as Starscream was half asleep. The usually sturdy berth rocked under Megatron's weight as he braced himself over Starscream. Starscream let his optics flutter shut again lazily, frame limp and compliant as Megatron hooked hands around the backs of his knees and spread his legs open. He fell between him, heavy but comforting in a restrictive sort of way. Their pelvic panels lined up perfectly, but Megatron kept his closed even as he rocked languidly against Starscream, mouthing at his neck and touching his wings. 

Starscream opened his panel, enjoying the grind of warm hard armour against his mesh folds, occasionally nudging at his anterior sensor. Megatron didn't let their frame's part when he finally deigned to retract his codpiece, and Starscream arched his back when smooth, iron-stiff metal was pushing into him. 

He made a noise caught somewhere between laugh and a moan at the uncharacteristically slow penetration, and shivered at the pause before Megatron began to move -tortuously slow, tortuously gentle, a rocking rhythm that was as sure to lull him back into recharge as it was to send him into an overload. 

Megatron took one of his hands from the berth and threaded their fingers together, grip tightening in pace with his deliberate thrusts. Starscream felt slow, and warm, and dumb trapped under Megatron, his frame still running at half-power and now sending most of it's energy straight to his interface array. 

The pace stayed tortuously slow and shallow, and still exhausted, Starscream did nothing to alter such a fact. He was the perfect puppet under Megatron's gentle hands, twitching and sighing when sensors were triggered, a pliant frame for him to touch and kiss and fuck however he wanted. 

The languid pace worked him towards a light but pleasantly lingering overload, zapping the last vestiges of his energy. Megatron breathed something awed in his audial when he tensed and finished, internals twisting into a tight knot before the pressure released in a rush of ecstasy and lubricant, his thighs clenching either side of Megatron's hips, his toe-pedes curling. 

He heard Megatron finish shortly afterwards with a muffled grunt, his head dropping to Starscream's shoulder as he circled his hips and pressed deep. Starscream turned his head and nuzzled the side of Megatron's helm as the large mech shook and shuddered with pleasure. 

Megatron lifted his head and sought him out, their lips coming together in a lazy, slow kiss. Starscream felt a thumb brush his cheek, and he sighed, his fuel tank doing somersaults. 

Megatron eased out of him without breaking the kiss, laying his frame back atop Starscream's. His softening-spike wasn't tucked back behind his panel but rested comfortably against Starscream's hip, an implication that there would be more to come later. 

Hopefully in the morning, Starscream thought, letting his head fall to the side to end the kiss, huffing when Megatron allowed what remained of his not inconsequential weight rest atop his lover, grunted as he made himself a home in Starscream's berth. 

"You're heavy," Starscream grumbled. 

"You're comfortable," Megatron murmured back, the first time he'd spoken since entering the room. 

Starscream sniffed and wrapped his arms around him, pushing his nose back into the larger mech's neck. 

Fine. He'd allow it, but just for tonight.


	20. Skywarp/Starscream - Attention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set G1. Rated E. Warnings for Sticky, 'Fast and Hard' facing, Open Relationships, Mentioned Assassination Attempts, and Bad Sex.

Starscream was in the middle of an experiment that required his absolute, undivided attention.

So naturally, it was at that crucial moment that Skywarp decided to teleport himself directly onto his work bench.

"Argh!" Starscream screeched when his work disappeared under a pair of dark thighs.

"Hi!" Skywarp grinned.

"Get off!" Starscream howled, yanking him off the work bench, "My experiment, it's-"

Ruined. Skywarp's fat aft had crushed the delicate components of the killer micro-assassins he had been working on for the last month. They resembled earth like insects and he had planned to release them into the air-vents leading to Megatron's quarters, ready for the next time the warlord inevitably irked him, where they would inflict an appropriately painful end for him -burrowing into his fuel lines and taking him apart, piece by microscopic piece, from the inside out.

Now they were tiny pancakes, crushed beyond repair.

He turned on Skywarp, "You _stupid_-!"

"Thundercracker's still on that mission in the North Pole," Skywarp was oblivious to both the destruction he had brought _and_ the deadly tone Starscream was using. "And I'm bored."

"Go and be bored somewhere else!" Starscream snarled through his denta.

"I can't be bored on my own!" Skywarp whined, and lifted his arms to try and ensnare Starscream in an embrace. "And I'm not actually 'bored'. I'm ..._you know_-"

Starscream slapped him off, "No! Get off me. Wait until Thundercracker is back."

Skywarp's face fell. "C'mon Screamer. We never do it anymore."

"Because you're bad at it and I have better choices now." Starscream stuck his nose in the air. Granted, that 'better' choice did occasionally require an assassination attempt to whip him into shape.

"Hey!" Skywarp cried, ""Variety is the spice of life!" Whatever spice is. You may go to Megatron for long nights of fulfilling, passion filled 'facing, but when you need it fast and hard-"

"No one actually likes it fast and hard," Starscream snarled.

"Thundercracker does."

"Thundercracker is too blinded by his infatuation for you to know better," Starscream sniffed. "But _I_ do know better. I've _had_ better. You! Do not deserve my attention, until you learn how to actually take someone else's pleasure into account."

Skywarp pouted, "Just a quickie?"

"No! Didn't you listen to a word I just said?!"

"All I'm hearing is screeching, Screamer." Skywarp smirked, "You're tense. You're _frustrated_. I can help with that."

"By leaving?" Starscream hissed.

Skywarp folded his arms and fanned his wings out wide and broad. "...You know, TC said they're gonna be stuck out there another week."

Starscream kept his gaze hard and unrelenting.

Skywarp stepped a little closer, softening his optics to a smoulder. "Which means _Megatron's_ gonna be stuck out there another week too. Which means you-" he prodded Starscream in the chest. "Are gonna be frustrated and tense, for a whole seven more days. Unless someone takes pity on you."

"Pity?" Starscream repeated dangerously.

"You want the attention just as much as I do. Admit it," Skywarp said smugly. "You just don't like doing the chasing."

Starscream grit his denta together, now so frustrated his hands had balled into fists. "I swear by Primus," he breathed, "If you overload before me-"

"I won't I promise!" Skywarp said in a frantic rush, grabbing Starscream around the waist and teleporting them the tiny distance to the work bench covered in the experiment Skywarp had already destroyed.

Starscream found himself sat on the shrapnel of his own work, his legs spread around Skywarp's hips. His trine-mate kissed him deeply, always more tongue than necessary, but never lacking in enthusiasm. Starscream reciprocated with a huff, bringing his arms up around Skywarp's neck.

Skywarp shoved a hand down his front and withdrew his spike, stoking it firmly. He pulled out of the kiss and started pecking short, hurried kisses to Starscream's mouth instead, rubbing his spike against his closed panel. "Missed doing this with you."

Starscream rolled his optics and let his panel slide open. Skywarp nosed his spike in between his mesh, and plugged in without ceremony. Hard and fast indeed.

"Slowly," Starscream snapped so he didn't just start pounding away. "And pay attention to my node."

"Sorry," Skywarp grinned, smile dazzlingly. Starscream felt some irritation melt away at the sight of it, remembering now how Skywarp was always able to get away with lazy, selfish lovemaking. He thumbed at Starscream's node as he rocked his hips. Wet, slick noises filled the lab, and Starscream started to turn into the sensation, his toe pedes curling at the delectable drag of Skywarp's spike over his callipers.

He hummed.

"Oh yeah," Skywarp smiled against his cheek, hands flexing on Starscream's hips. "You're always so wet-"

Starscream's brow creased. "Don't talk."

"Are you gonna overload?" Skywarp asked, ignoring him.

"No!" Starscream snapped, feeling his arousal dwindle. He urged Skywarp to move faster.

His trine-mate whined impatiently, "Really?"

"It's been five minutes!" Starscream snapped, realising he was being spoiled with Megatron. Granted, seeker's were better known for a fast recovery time, and less so for stamina. Skywarp in particular was never going to be much of a marathon interfacer.

"Star, I have to-"

"Don't you dare!" Starscream snarled, sinking claws into his wings. "You promised!"

"You feel so good!" Skywarp cried, "You- oh- _ohh_-"

Skywarp's pace faltered, and Starscream felt liquid warmth flood his valve. He glared at Skywarp's stupid, dopey overload face, feeling his optic twitch in irritation as his trine-mate managed just a handful of cursory thrusts before stilling inside him, his spike already beginning to soften.

Starscream glared in judgmental silence as Skywarp regained his breath, panting against his neck. "Woo," he laughed, "Sorry, you're just so-"

Starscream shoved him off before he could say anymore.

"Hey!" Skywarp cried, stumbling back and falling against another lab table as Starscream stood and began to stomp out of the lab. "Screamer? Where are you going?"

"To the North Pole!" Starscream snarled.

Skywarp blinked, "But, why-?"

"To get an overload!"


	21. Starscream/Ratchet - Bullying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set G1 cartoon. Rated T. Warnings for poor bedside manner, doctor on patient violence, and Starscream's low pain tolerance.

"Ow! Ow! _Oww_!" Starscream's vocaliser was unique in the octaves it could reach.

Ratchet's audials rang and almost blew out at the sharp noise. He winced and clapped his servos over them, and waited tensely for the glass shattering howls to subside.

The supposedly fearsome Decepticon Second-in-Command, Starscream -the wuss- was sat on Ratchet's examination berth, clutching at his left thruster and claiming -so vehemently that he had surrendered himself to the opposite side- that it was seconds from blowing up and taking his entire leg with it.

"Alright, alright, alright!" Ratchet yelled, almost as loudly, and punctuated his last 'alright' with a well deserved smack to Starscream's wing. The seeker jumped, glared, and folded them closer to his frame, muttering a vulgar curse about what happened to fools who laid their hands on a seeker's wings under his breath.

"Let me see it," Ratchet ordered.

Starscream began to scoot away from him. "It hurts-!"

"How am I supposed to figure out if it's serious, if you don't let me-?"

"I already told you it was serious!" Starscream clutched his thruster defensively closer, denta bared. "You don't need to look-"

"Starscream," Ratchet snarled slowly, "How the frag am I supposed to make pain go away, if you won't let me near it? I need to look at the blaster thing to fix it!"

"It's- it's-" Ratchet had never known Starscream to be lost for words. Starscream stared at his poor foot, conflicted.

"It's...?" Ratchet pressed.

"They're sensitive, okay?!" Starscream growled.

"Well no kidding! You've only been sat here living up to your name for the last twenty minutes!"

"How dare you, medic! _I_ have handled this injury with _nothing_ but dignity and quiet grace!"

Ratchet couldn't help it. He started to laugh.

And Starscream was so shocked and horrified by his complete and utter lack of beside-manner that Ratchet was able to take him by surprise in pushing him over and finally taking hold of the injured thruster for himself.

Starscream squeaked, instinctively started to kick, and a brief but violent scuffle began. Half the medical tool's clattered to the floor, Ratchet was kicked twice in the gut, and Starscream _screamed_ again when Ratchet jabbed a finger into an armour seam he _knew_ was particularly sensitive.

"Alright, alright _alright_!" Starscream howled, throwing himself across the medberth with particular dramatics, finally letting Ratchet get on with his job with just the barest of twitches and flinches of protest. "Just... Be gentle."

Fragging Decepticons, Ratchet thought, snorting. He lifted Starscream's thruster and flicked on a light to look down it. He saw the problem fairly quickly. And snorted again.

"Something funny?!" Starscream snarled, sounding indignant.

"Yes. You," Ratchet dropped the thruster and flicked his light off again. "I'm not going to lie to you Screamer," he began with dripping sarcasm the seeker was bound to miss. "It's pretty serious."

The Decepticons optics brightened to pink with fear. Ratchet almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

"It is?!" He whispered.

Ratchet nodded solemnly, keeping his expression as stoic and straight as he could. "You're only lucky you came to me. This is the sort of delicate, complicated procedure only a skilled medic such as myself could deal with."

"I knew it," Starscream breathed, "I knew it would be worth handing myself in to you. _Hook_ doesn't know a thruster from a tailpipe!"

Ratchet shrugged at the comparison, "They're not so different," he said, patting Starscream's 'poorly' thruster again.

Starscream snapped his head up. "What?!"

"Thrusters and tailpipes?" Ratchet clarified. He lifted Starscream's thruster gently, careful not to jostle it and cause it further pain. "At least, they both suffer from the same common medical issue."

Starscream's brow creased, but before he could demand further explanations as to what he meant, Ratchet gripped Starscream's ankle and _shoved_ a thumb and forefinger _into_ the delicate thruster heel as far as they could go. Starscream's howl _broke_ the medical beakers, but Ratchet had already closed his fingers around the 'obstruction' causing the pain. He twisted it, tugged, and yanked the entire thing free.

Starscream was still pale and writhing on the berth when Ratchet held up the twig to survey it.

"They're always getting _things_ stuck _up_ them," Ratchet clarified on what the similarity between thrusters and tailpipes were. "The difference," he continued. "Is that tailpipes aren't quiet so delicate."

Starscream breathed laboriously, unable to respond. Ratchet savoured the sadistic amusement a moment longer, before sticking a hand into a drawer for some sedatives. He picked one with extra strength. Poor seekers didn't have a lot of pain tolerance.

"Alright, alright," he said gently, prepping a fuel line. Starscream barely responded to his touches. "Worst is over with now."

"You're a bully," Starscream hissed, still pale and twitching.

"So are you," Ratchet smiled, and pushed a syringe full of sedatives into his main fuel line. "This'll make you feel better."

Starscream's twitches settled as the sedative rushed through his frame and his breathing slowed.

"I'll get you for this," he promised darkly, slurring tongue only slightly ruining his menace.

Ratchet patted the thruster he had dutifully fixed. "Just watch out for those twigs, Screamer. I can't imagine Hook would be any gentler."

Starscream closed his optics and moaned, turning his head to the side.

Stupid seeker, Ratchet thought fondly, picking up the twig and snapping it in half, tossing it to the side.

Awful patient, but great entertainment.


	22. Megatron/Command Trine - Spoiled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated E. Warnings for Foursome, Blow Jobs, and Megatron getting almost more seeker than he can handle.

Megatron had barely roused when the first kiss fell to the corner of his mouth. His lips twitched into a smile. He flicked an optic online when a second fell to his audial. The third lingered on his jaw, along with a hand on his cheek. He lifted his arms and found wings and trim waists either side of him, and made an appreciative noise at the company in his berth.

A leg came over his torso and weight fell across his chest when one of them straddled him. The other two pressed close to his sides. He lifted his arms up and out of the way to give them room, then brought them back down around the smalls of their backs.

Starscream was on his right, fragrant and warm, his claws tracing the lines of his throat cables and his clever tongue teasing at the seam under his jaw. Thundercracker was on his left, a leg thrown over his hip and a hand brushing the top of his helmet as he kissed up the side of his face. Which meant it was Skywarp laid across his chest, brushing their noses together and breathing against his lips between kisses.

One seeker was fun. Two were a gift. But three? Three was being spoiled.

He sat up, and there was a flurry of movement as Thundercracker and Starscream tried to join Skywarp on his lap, all three of them kissing, and nuzzling, and whining for a turn at his mouth. He lifted his chin and craned his neck cables to avoid their needy attempts, still half-asleep and groggy.

With a hiss Starscream grabbed his head in both hands and yanked it in his direction, and before Megatron knew it his mouth was claimed by the tongue and lips of his devious Second In Command. He responded lazily, dropping his hand down Starscream's back to cup his cherry red aft. Starscream curved his spinal strut and leant into him, trying to knee Skywarp and steal the coveted place in the middle.

Megatron growled in warning. He wasn't going to have Starscream bully his trine out of the berth before he could have the chance to relive the glory that had been last nights foursome.

"Screamer!" Skywarp complained, getting jostled.

Megatron tore himself free of the kiss. "Enough," he warned, glaring between Starscream's mean, jealous little face, and Skywarp's grumpy pout. There was only so much of him to go around, and no one seemed patient enough to take turns.

An idea popped into his processor.

"You," he nodded at Skywarp, "Handle your commander." He tipped his head towards Starscream.

"Sir yes sir!" Skywarp saluted, more than happy to obey, and had Starscream tackled onto his back on the berth in no time, leaving Thundercracker free to slip with silent elegance into Megatron's lap in their place, immediately dropping his head to Megatron's chest to lavish it in attention.

Megatron leant back against the headboard, cupping the back of Thundercracker's head and guiding the more stoic seeker down to where he wanted him, all the while watching Starscream squirm and mutter beneath Skywarp, all awkward shuffling and irritated wing twitches. It wasn't the sort of exhibitionist display Megatron had seen before on ever popular seeker fetish holo-videos, where two graceful fliers moaned and mewled endlessly as they pleasured each other for their unseen viewer's pleasure. No. It was better. It was real. And it was all for him.

Thundercracker reached his codpiece and he let it fold open, urging the seeker to lick over the housing and tease him out. Thundercracker didn't have to work too hard in getting him stiff, as Megatron watched Skywarp straddle Starscream's shoulders, knees either side of his head, and feed him his spike.

Megatron hummed in approval and gripped the back of Thundercracker's head. Wet heat engulfed him as Thundercracker swallowed him down.

The room filled with the sounds of soft, wet noises, heavy vents, and deep swallows. Megatron stroked the back of Thundercracker's head as the seeker worked to take him deeper, shuttering his optics and opening his throat to let him slip past his intake into the tubing of his throat. It was tighter, and Megatron groaned, twitching his hips up to get deeper.

Next to him Starscream choked, and Skywarp's wings fluttered on his back. He threw his head back and dropped onto all fours over Starscream's head, letting his hips circle down against him. Sky blue hands clutched at Skywarp's hips, claws leaving needle thin scrapes in the purple paint.

Skywarp gasped and tensed over Starscream, and Megatron heard the loud gulp of Starscream swallowing down his spill. With a satisfied hum Megatron grabbed Thundercracker's head in both hands and began to move it up and down his spike, faster, deeper, until overload came crashing over him. His spike pulsed right down Thundercracker's throat, giving his tank a healthy lining of transfluid.

After a taking some time to savour the moment, Megatron released Thundercracker, and watched the three seekers shuffle up and roll back towards him, all overheated and dazed and panting.

He petted their wings and appreciated their pretty faces, using his thumb to wipe a smear of transfluid away from Thundercracker's bottom lip, then pushing it back into his mouth so he could lick it away.

His aching spike began to harden again.

"Skywarp," he patted his thigh, "be a good solider and indulge me, won't you?"

Skywarp rushed to obey, valve panel already shooting back. Starscream scoffed against his side, his arms folded petulantly. "Haven't you been '_indulged_' enough?" He sneered.

Megatron let his optics track up and down his Second In Command's tight, colourful frame, and smiled at the thought of what he had planned for it.

"Not yet."


	23. Soundwave/Shockwave - Kissing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set Transformers Prime. Rated T, for some Not-Kissing.

Of all the unexpected phenomena to be found among alien species, Shockwave did not expect to have to waste so much processing power around any particular anomaly, let alone one so ...unimportant.

Humans had an odd sort of bonding method ...involving their mouths.

Shockwave didn't ordinarily waste his valuable time studying organic life- he was a _real_ scientist after all, interested in the progression of the universe, not stuck looking back at the past- but he found homo-sapiens, in all their abundance, much harder to ignore when sharing a planet with them.

He had a basic understanding of the primitive study of 'biology', and knew mouths were generally used by most organic species as an orifice with which to consume fuel through. It was filled with protruding bone they called 'teeth' which were designed to mash up their fuel in order to lessen the workload of their pathetic, easily disturbed digestive systems.

And though some other 'less advanced' species lacking in opposable thumbs used their mouths as a multi-tool, none of them involved themselves in the seemingly useless hobby of 'kissing.'

It appeared pleasure played some part in it, and humans were un-evolved enough to still have to rely on physical touch to strengthen their ties. But it was a very _particular_ form of bonding, and often seemed to act as a prelude to copulation.

Shockwave had been unaware of this supposedly obscure knowledge regarding human nature having an influence on his fellow comrades, oblivious to it sweeping through the ranks of his otherwise sensible faction -until he had walked in on Soundwave reviewing human broadcasts on the screen of the largest monitor. The intelligence officer turned his visored face towards Shockwave at his entrance, dipping his helm in greeting, before slowly refocusing his attention on the screen, where two humans were in the middle of an emotional embrace.

Shockwave approached, curious, and watched the proceedings from Soundwave's shoulder. The two humans held one another, their mouths shifting as they realigned their lips, and their eyes were closed to the dangers of the world around them. Impractical and foolish.

Shockwave turned his attention to Soundwave's form, studying his stillness. The intelligence officer's attention was fixated on the screen, his mask tilted forwards towards it, like he was leaning in, drawn to the footage on the screen.

Shockwave adjusted his footing and the sound of his armour shifting drew Soundwave's attention from the screen. He turned slowly and faced Shockwave. His mask tipped up. A question mark bloomed into view on his visor.

"Your interest in organic bonding habits is illogical," Shockwave reprimanded him.

Soundwave said nothing, his mask blank. Slowly, he turned back to face the monitor. A spindly limb lifted and a long finger pressed a key to change the video on screen. New footage popped up, this time of another human couple, laughing and smiling in bed, pressing mouths to cheeks and foreheads in an utterly unnecessary show of physical affection.

Shockwave looked between the screen and Soundwave, wondering what sort of processor defect his comrade was suffering through.

"Your pining is illogical. We do not have the necessary equipment to waste time on these things."

Soundwave changed the recording again, this time not to a clip from some low budget human drama production, but to the security footage from the Nemesis's bridge. Megatron appeared on screen, and half hidden in his arms was what appeared to be Starscream's lithe form. The speakers played out the audio as crystal clear as if the scene where happening before their very optics. Sighing vocalisers and smacking lips.

Shockwave had seen enough. He reached around Soundwave and switched the monitor off himself. The screen went blank and left them in near darkness. Only the Nemesis's purple emergency lights illuminated their dark frames.

Soundwave turned fully and looked up at him challengingly.

Shockwave felt a twinge of regret in his otherwise unfeeling spark chamber. "You are asking something of me that I cannot give."

Soundwave shook his helm gently, slim arms lifting to his big chest. Soundwave straightened up and rose onto his toe pedes, leaning up towards Shockwave. Shockwave tipped his helm down, until the reflection in Soundwave's visor was just his one large glowing red optic. He cupped Soundwave's elbow in his servo, and began to shake his head. "I cannot-"

Soundwave leaned into the remaining distance and taped his mask against the edge of Shockwave's helm, stunning him into silence. They remained that way for a moment, just a millimetre of space between their helms.

"_Logical_." Soundwave played his own voice back at him from his speakers, and leant in again, this time to nuzzle him gently. Shockwave leaned down and nuzzled back, out of both instinct and the overwhelming need to respond to Soundwave's affectionate display in kind.

A pink cartoon organic heart popped up on Soundwave's visor and began to pulse, Shockwave went to recoil in irritation at the sight of it, but one of Soundwave's hands cupped the back of his helm and kept him in place. He stepped closer, until his long legs were twined with Shockwave's own, his slender frame leaning up and against his large sturdier body.

There was no exchange of saliva or ridiculous sighing and gasping, but it was intimate in it's own way. Shockwave wrapped his arms around Soundwave's minuscule waist and held him close, letting their helms brush and nudge together.

It wasn't a kiss.

But for them it was just as good.


End file.
